In a World Gone Astray
by Vallory Russups
Summary: HPLV. An "ordinary" Death Eater, Harry hides his true self to survive in this world ruled by the murderer of his parents. On his way to revenge, he schemes, kills, uses unwitting people, plays games with his superiors. He doesn't have anything to lose, and the path he is walking looks clear and uncomplicated. Until the Dark Lord himself takes an interest in him. Dark!Harry
1. Chapter 1 I'm Not Broken, But You Can T

Disclaimer: Neither Harry Potter nor Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort belong to me. Nor do any other characters you recognise (or don't recognise but know are canon). I'm simply dabbling in the wonderful magical world Rowling has created, and experimenting with what its characters can be like when put in situations differing from canon.

The plot and a couple of concept that will actively run through this story are mine though, so I'd appreciate if you didn't copy them into your works without permission.

Summary: An "ordinary" Death Eater, Harry hides his true self to survive in this world ruled by the murderer of his parents. On his way to revenge, he schemes, kills, uses unwitting people, plays games with people far superior in social standing. He doesn't have anything to lose, and the path he is walking looks clear and uncomplicated.

Until the Dark Lord himself takes an interest in him.

Parings: HPLV main, but there is quite a lot of teasing with other parings and characters. RWHG, PPDM, BZTN, and plenty of other inconsequential parings that won't be that important (or even mentioned). If you have a particular side paring you want to see, state it in a review – I might as well include it if it doesn't disrupt the plot.

Warnings: SLASH. Please, if you feel that this kind of stuff is not for you, close the door from the other side. I will be glad not to have to ward off flamers whining that males can't kiss an' grope each other.

AU. And I mean it, people. Although, thankfully, no OCs (there might be only the inconsequential ones, usually some meat for battles and the like, but they don't affect the plot in any way).

Dark/Intelligent/Manipulative Harry whose goal in the end is to aid the Light side. If it doesn't make sense, read on and eventually you'll understand what I'm talking about :)

Also, there will be quite a bit of fighting, blood, torture, killing, and the like (not too graphic though, you can breathe out).

Author's Notes: Hello, everyone. I'm happy you've clicked on this story, and hope it doesn't disappoint you. I didn't have my computer for about a month, thus haven't written anything new for this time (yeah, I do remember all my re-writes! And you probably won't have too long for them, too). But this chapter has been on my computer since the beginning of NaNo, so I thought, "Why not? Might as well put it up." So, you'll probably have to wait a couple of week for an update.

Another thing: This chapter is short, but it's kinda a prologue, and in the subsequent chapters the word count will boost up a bit. This is not a permanent thing, don't worry ;) Also, in the first chapter we don't see much of Harry's intelligent and manipulative side, but in the next one we'll already see a glimpse of how sneaky he can be.

* * *

**Chapter 1. I'm Not Broken, But You Can Try to Fix Me Anyway**

* * *

_Screams. His father's._

_They accompanied them all the way to Harry's room, into which his mother barged with him in tow. Looking around wildly, she scuttled to the half-open wardrobe and slammed the doors closed after them. They didn't have the protection of magic; a frighteningly grinning man had wrenched the wand out of Harry's mother's hands earlier._

_Harry felt his Mummy's heart beat wildly against his ear as he pressed himself to her with all his might. The wardrobe was stuffy and too cluttered and small. Claustrophobically small. The walls pressed in on them, and Harry wished with all his strength to get out of there._

_Alas, they couldn't. Not yet._

_Not when the bad men his Mummy had talked about had barged in and started razing to the ground the normalcy in the Potter household._

_Harry had difficulty breathing; his mother's long dress got in his nose, so he whimpered to show his distress. His mother, Lily, rushed to clamp his mouth shut and embraced him tighter, rocking them both back and forth as much as was possible in the tiny space they were stuck in._

_"Hush," she whispered tearfully, clutching him tighter. Harry would have missed the words if he hadn't been so close to her, his ear right next to her mouth and funnily tingling when she spoke. "Don't worry, sweetheart. Just stay calm, please, we- We will pull through. I promise you."_

_"Where is Daddy?" Harry asked and didn't understand from where the drops falling on his cheeks had come. Locks of his mother's brilliant red hair descended to his face, shielding his eyes from the tiny creak in the wardrobe doors that was the only source of light and air._

_"He- He will come soon. He must."_

_He frowned at her tone. He had never heard his proud, strong mother sound this tearful and crushed. It felt wrong, somehow._

_"Why are you crying?" he asked, small forehead scrunched up in puzzlement as he reached with his arm to wipe away her tears. "Don't, Mummy. If you don't stop, I will be sad, too."_

_"I love you honey," she murmured instead and pressed a tender kiss against his knuckles._

_"What do these people want with you?" Harry asked. Despite his age, he comprehended that no people broke into other people's houses, caused ruckus there, and waved their wands around threateningly. Wands were serious business, his father had drilled into him time and time again._

_"Your father and I... We decided to do what is right instead of what is expected," his Mummy whispered into his hair, clutching him tighter with every word spoken. "Remember, Harry. Always follow your heart, no matter the cost. This way, you will never fall victim to their manipulations. This way, even if they twist your heart and mind, you will find the way out. To the Light. To the loyalty and goodness."_

_She traced a finger across his narrow chest, pointing it right at the place his heart was beating against._

_"I don't understand," Harry mumbled, feeling his eyes droop. He was getting sleepy, and yet his mother didn't show any signs of leaving their refuge._

_Refuge. What a frightening word._

_Harry didn't understand. He understood nothing in the whole situation, and the fact swung him into the pits of despair, which only deepened at his father's continuing absence. They didn't hear him anymore, too far away from where they had left him, from where he had shouted at them to run._

_"Someday, you will-"_

_She didn't get to finish the sentence. A loud explosion interrupted her starting speech and she brought him closer. Harry held back his breathing. A premonition churned in his stomach uncomfortably, just like those explosions. Neither of them talked, and red hair was still clouding his vision._

_Red, red, red._

_Everything he could see, those red ruins of broken reality._

_"Where the fuck are they?" a rough voice growled. Its animalistic quality reminded Harry of Uncle Remus, the quieter friend of his parents. He shivered. "Don't tell me we came 'ere for nothin'!"_

_"Shut up, Greyback," another male voice snapped, this one milder and softer. "You got to kill the man. Now you can boast of having murdered the famous Head of Law Enforcement Department."_

_Harry's mother trembled violently against his body, and he took her hands in his as covertly as possible, giving her comfort. The tumultuous thoughts in his own mind were all blending together in a tornado of barely comprehensive scraps of conscious._

_Surely, those men weren't talking about his father?_

_"Should'ave tortured him," Greyback grumbled. Steps resounded throughout the room. Why did the echo sound so ominous? "Think the woman's still 'ere?"_

_"We have warded the entire house. Neither Apparition nor emergency portkeys function here. Crabbe and Goyle are at the door, so she can't have escaped this way either."_

_"Crabbe and Goyle... Blasted skrewts are smarter than those two put together."_

_"Don't sweat it. Where do all people usually hide while in their rooms? Where is the place that a woman could stuff both herself and the child in?"_

_"Under the bed?"_

_"No, you nitwit! Here!"_

_"Prepare, Harry," his mother murmured to him just as hurried steps neared them. The doors swung open and the sudden burst of light hurt his eyes._

_"Ha! Found you!"_

_But Harry didn't pay attention to the insanely wide grin on the thin lips, nor to the blinding light. His whole world was concentrated on his mother's breathy words smashing straight into his soul with the infallible conviction lacing them._

_"I won't let them take you away. I promise."_

_With that, she charged._

* * *

Harry's hand sprang up to grasp thin air. A scream died down in his throat. Not for the first time, Harry thanked Merlin for his vast knowledge of silencing charms. This area of magic had become a faithful friend to him throughout his Hogwarts years, and even during the many cruel instances of dreamless nights before the school.

"Not again," he groaned, covering his face with both his hands. Thin limbs didn't stop shaking, but no tears fell from exotic green eyes. The tears had abandoned him long time ago, when the nightmares had fallen into normality and didn't wobble his world anymore. "Father... Mother... Why can't you stop haunting me, after all these years?"

The question was rhetoric. The cold grave that didn't even exist, for traitors deserved no burials, couldn't give him answers.

In his heart, Harry knew the solution.

Their spirits craved blood, rare blood of a certain murderer, and Harry had made it his life's ambition to fulfil the unspoken promise and provide it.

Harry pushed himself up, opting to mindlessly sit in his bed for a few more minutes, to gather his wits and slip on the solitary mask of nonchalance and blankness. The everyday procedure.

Moving to put his slippers on and go to the bathroom, Harry winced at the pain that pierced through his leg like a lightning bolt. Late private trainings to boost up his duelling prowess could do that to a person, he knew. Practising duelling spells and battle tactics all night long, till the early hours when he had absolutely no choice but to sleep if he didn't wish to feel like an inferius, had been a mistake.

_Ha. As if I_ don't _feel like an inferius every second of my life anyway._

The bitterness was nothing new. Neither was the surge of anger, hopelessness, hatred, and resentment, all mixed in the intertwining strands that made up the foundation of his ideology and searing desire to see the man who had torn away his peaceful life dead and six feet under.

_But soon,_ Harry's subconscious whispered as the teen washed the tiredness off his body under the streams of soothing cool water, _soon. They think me as pliable and submissive as the rest, but the Death Munchers, along with their deranged leader, have a nasty surprise coming._

Passing by a mirror, Harry stopped to flick a glance in its direction. Waist-long blackest hair imaginable. Expressive Killing Curse green eyes. Average height and a thin, deceptively inconspicuous layer of muscle.

Harry supposed he was beautiful. It was a pity that whatever relationship he could have, failed the moment the other party found out about his being a lowly halfblood whose parents had betrayed the Dark Lord. His official state as an orphan and the charge of the notorious Bellatrix Lestrange herself – Harry's eyes flashed at the remembrance of the woman – didn't add him any charm either, in this society built on money and power, and on the blind worship of their supreme ruler.

A sneer twisted the young man's features. He balled his fists. _Fools, all of them. _

His heart burned with the hatred for this violent monster, whom their sheep-like Wizarding World followed like they would a shepherd. Their bedazzlement reached as far as to turn wizards into similar beasts, void of compassion and proudly arguing that emotions were only for the weak. People glorified the tales of murder and misery, adored the foul play, and sneered at whatever precious grains of light still existed in the world.

The older wizards passed this mindset on to their children, and each time the future generation grew crueller than the one preceding it.

"And I am a victim of this rotten environment," Harry whispered, bringing his hands to touch the smooth, cool surface of the mirror. His face leaning in so much that his nose was almost touching the mirror, he felt a bitter smirk tugging at his lips.

No, it felt wrong to victimise himself. Harry was more like a child of the Dark Lord's regime, his generation being the first real product of Voldemort's conditioning. His innocence had long been lost to the whispering darkness of the Lestrange Manor he lived in, to the cruel red of the last memory of his parents, to the scorching hatred that exploded inside him every time his eyes caught the glimpse of the supreme murderer who reigned over them with a metaphorical crown on his thick brown mane.

Harry took a step back from the mirror. Nose wrinkled in irritation, he reminded himself that he hadn't come here to watch his own reflection.

_It starts tomorrow._ He closed his eyes and exhaled. _No, it's today already._

A grimace twisted his face.

_The branding. _

_Oh, joy. _

_We will be branded like cattle, forced to bear his claim and act on his wished and submit to his every whim. _Here, Harry's eyes flashed and he shot his mirror reflection a grin full of teeth. Would he allow it? To be a plaything in the immortal hands of a God-wannabe with over-inflated sense of self?

_No._

_And I Vow, Dark Lord Voldemort, right here and now. I have already sworn my devotion to my goal, but it's time I renew this oath: For the death of my parents and everyone else you butchered in your fits of hysteria, you will pay with your life, and I will drag you down to the wizarding Hell myself if there is no one else to do it._

After thinking the words, Harry walked back into his bedroom and came to a halt in front of his bed, bending a bit to retrieve his faithful wand from under the pillow. (And yes, it was paranoid to keep it there, but the mistrust in the privacy wards Bella had placed was founded).

_Now, it's time to take the real Vow, I think?_

"_Verum Promittere_," Harry murmured the words with reverence, his green gaze never leaving the wand. Bright grass-coloured eyes greedily drank in the sight of silvery wisps escaping his wand, all twisting around his wrist in an invisible handcuff, one that would no doubt avenge Harry's wavering from his beliefs, if such a thing ever came to pass.

And yet he had nothing to fear.

Harry was convinced that no matter what manipulations the Dark Lord would dish out to haul Harry to his side, once he realised the teen's true worth, they wouldn't change his mind about killing the abominable maggots-for-brain maniac whose morals had passed away long ago not bearing to live without sister sanity.

With a deeply held belief in his heart, Harry started preparing for the day.

_Certainty is good. Certainly gives my mind a break after all the turmoil in my life._

* * *

Slytherin Manor was vastly different from Lestrange Manor Harry had grown up in.

And today, for the special occasion of traditionally branding all the sixth – future seventh – years at Hogwarts, it was lavishly decorated with outstanding artwork, tables, on which countless delicious dishes resided, and dark carpets and drapes with elaborate ornaments.

Done in pleasantly soothing greens and blacks and silvers, the ballroom would have delighted Harry, if not for the small fact that the mansion was home to the notorious Dark Lord.

In a muggle neighbourhood.

Little Hangleton, the name was. Or something of the kind. Harry had never centred his attention on this small detail.

It was another proof of the man's twisted logic. Honestly, who would choose to stay at a place so close to the beings you abhor and kill off on a regular basis?

_Well, I suppose he does have something to occupy himself with in between planning genocide and world domination_, Harry thought, sarcasm dripping. _And what can be better than snatching a couple of ignorant muggles from a midnight stroll, show them to the private dungeons, and have a few hours of fun with shackles and his wand-_

_Ouch. I don't want to even think about how perverted it sounded._

The logical explanation for Voldemort's desire to live in such a place, the one most people came up with, was that the house was believed to have some connection to Salazar Slytherin himself. In reverent whispers, they rationalised that considering Lord Voldemort was a Parselmouth and the Founder's heir, he had inherited the familial manor and settled in it, and thus the mansion in Little Hangleton had become a symbol of how a pureblood household should look like.

Harry believed it to be a load of croak.

_Salazar Slytherin? Living in a _muggle _neighbourhood? Pfft. Don't' make me laugh. The chap would have probably released his mysterious chamber-of-secrets monster on them or slit his own throat to avoid the misery._

Harry didn't know how people could actually be so foolish as to believe the tall tales the Dark Lord weaved around his former life. Were his fellow wizards so blinded by the twisted splendour offered by the man, or was there something else, some underlying puzzling reason transparent to everyone but him.

Harry didn't know. Couldn't tell. And, frankly, didn't even wish to.

He had long ago lost the will to believe in the existing hope for mankind, but some scrapes of it had stuck to the inner walls of his mind and belief, and the young man didn't want the remnants of that optimism completely abolished, thank you very much.

"Firewhiskey, Young Master Harry?" a trembling house elf offered, extending a tray so Harry could grab the tumbler.

The young man threw an absent-minded glance at the creature, thought for a second, and stretched out his hand to scope one. Merlin knew he would need it this evening.

No other way he would get through the meeting with the Dark Lord of all monsters without strangling the bastard.

Or, well, attempting to. No one cancelled the Inner Circle and the bunch of random Death Eaters who would protect their master in any scenario.

"Thanks, Twiggy. I'll call you if I need anything else," Harry tossed, manoeuvring through the crowd of guests, all ostentatiously dressed and as snobbish as they were wealthy, towards the round tables covered with delicacies-full plates. On his way, he bumped into a dancing couple, and when a flicker of his eyes told him one of them was Malfoy, didn't waste time in purposely stepping on the blonde's foot.

"Potter!" the dancing teen hissed. Harry raised a shapely eyebrow. "Trust a blood-traitor to be a bumbling elephant even today!"

"Oh? And today is special how?"

Malfoy gritted his teeth but remained pureblood-stiff, not letting Harry's deliberate dumb act get to him and smash his carefully nurtured pureblood bearing into pieces. Harry took a casual sip from his tumbler, noting the warmth spreading in his stomach at the liquid. _Getting too drunk isn't a good idea, though. I'll need my awareness today. Even if all I want is to throw the caution out the window and get so mindlessly drunk that Bellatrix Avadas herself out of shame for her charge._

Bellatrix.

Without his will guiding them, Harry's eyes darted to the arched passageway behind which the _crème de la crème_ mingled.

To waltz in there... That, he was too much of a coward to do.

Besides, he had some company.

Harry's eyes widened at the realisation before he berated himself and stuffed the poison of conflicting negativity back into the bottled-up state it was jam-packed in. He allowed no emotion bleed through his cool, if vaguely amused, exterior after that.

_Bloody hell- Malfoy! And the damn ferret is attentive, too. Oh well, it's not like he cares. I should probably have some fun with him before I hurl him back to his date._

Just to watch Malfoy's reaction, Harry brought his hand up to his mouth and wiped his lips with the sleeve of his simple green dress robe. The gesture covered the sly smile on his face at the horrified grimace that momentarily split Malfoy heir's features. The blond's date – some plain pureblood girl Harry wasn't acquainted with – wasn't that far behind.

"I thought, Potter, that even in your stuck up hole of the world the news has reached you. If you're really that far behind the times, I enlighten you: tonight is the great date for all of us, the very peak of our lives-"

Malfoy's usual drawl morphed into animated tone as wild gesticulation helped him convey just how important this night was, and to emphasise how paltry Harry's whole existence was in comparison. With a bored expression and sipping on the firewhiskey – _and oh bugger, I think I need another one if he drones on like this for another minute_ – the green-eyed teen was sweeping the vast and elegant ballroom of the Slytherin Manor with a fed-up look.

_Does he ever shut up?_

"-today, we will finally receive the marks of our loyalty – the Dark Mark itself, and don't you dare ruin my flawless performance in front of the Dark Lord, Potter, or I swear I'll-"

Malfoy's date was nodding along to every word the blond uttered, even as he launched into a tirade on the kind of fate awaiting Harry if the orphaned boy indeed dared spoil Dray's Big Day.

_I guess I'll have to help him fight off the verbosity. Seriously, obsessing over the old fossil with megalomaniac tendencies can't be good for health. Where is Lucius looking?_ Harry asked himself even as he bolted down a rush of resentment for the blond.

Malfoy's life was so easy in comparison to his, so much lighter and happier... Those concerns of his – to have the Dark Lord's regard and respect – were childish and naive and idiotic and a thousand other derogatory adjectives Harry could think of, but there was one thing they weren't: hopeless and cynical.

"I get it, Malfoy. You can save your praises for someone who actually listens," Harry drawled. He looked into the tumbler where only a second ago the firewhiskey had been splashed, but the blasted thing was dreadfully empty now. "You know, I always find it strange how you superiorly strut around the place with your nose permanently up the air and this annoying my-daddy-has-the-money attitude, but always turn into a worshipful ingénue when this Lord of yours is concerned."

Harry was jealous. If only _his_ problems were restricted to finding his father's and Lord's acceptance... But noo, that was too good to be true for the son of a mudblood and blood traitor.

Malfoy's face contorted into a dark scowl, and his cheeks coloured with two ugly splotches of red. Harry noted that the colour contrasted greatly both with the baby blue of Malfoy's fancy robes and with the dark green colours the ballroom was decorated in.

Harry's lips stretched into a dark smirk as he caught sight of the blond's shaking hands.

Malfoy seemed to take this as a sign, and, in the bat of an eye, sprang forward to grab the collar of Harry's dress robe.

Harry's hand released the tumbler and it broke. The splinters sprinkled across the black marble and fell into whimsical shapes.

A quiet gasp sneaked out past Harry's lips, but the teen pulled himself together in a jiffy and raised his calm gaze to clash with Malfoy's hot one.

The date gasped, the sound muffled in the polite din of the ballroom, and Harry glimpsed a few dancing couples halting their smooth movements to stare.

Malfoy turned away for a moment to wave them away.

Everyone got a hint and minded their business.

"Oh. Feisty today, are we, Dray?" Harry almost purred. "You are such a stiff at Hogwarts and elsewhere. Good to see even you can pull a stick out of your arse once in a while and join us, mere humans."

_What am I saying?_ Harry vaguely realised that his thoughts were tumbling away from him and no matter how much he grasped for them, they escaped his reach like a leprechaun would a desperate gold-seeker's. _I'm never this bloody careless in public..._

And then his gaze fell on the splinters of crystal scattered across the floor, and the realisation rushed at him like a tsunami wave.

_Bugger! Shouldn't have drunk so much firewhiskey. They do say the stuff is highly alcoholic._

Well, no other options but grit his teeth and hope it would pass.

Not to mention Harry had another problem on his hands at the moment.

"You dare?" Malfoy snarled, and while his voice held no ounce of Severus Snape's velvety danger or Malfoy's own father's silky promise of painful social death or Rodolphus Lestrange's assurance of physical death, Harry realised that he was playing Russian roulette here. "My father is a hand-reach away. Should I call him? Will you be so brave in front of him, too, or hide your tail between your legs how it happened in our childhood?"

The smirk that curled Malfoy's lips dumped Harry off the cliff of his self-control.

The recollections of his, of _their_ shared childhood all streaked through his mind.

His glassy eyes reflected his past flashing by in his mind, the way Slytherins – not only them, but considering they were his very own House, it had hurt even more – the very wizards who should have stood by him the entire time, had been treating him.

Their hurtful words used to dig into his soul deeper than a most powerful Slashing Curse would do. They enjoyed taunting his orphaned status, the fact that he didn't have anyone to stand up for him only further alienating him from them. They would clatter around him into a tight ring, and then he would know and hear and listen to nothing more than heavy stones of cruel words thrown at him by childish hands, and no matter how much he would attempt to shield his ears and just _not hear_, they would force him to, tearing his hands away and shouting, shouting, always shouting...

He found it unfair that in place of the bright memories of the time spent with his parents, Harry's earliest recollections were hazy shrouds of spiteful crows of laughter, jibes, and social ruin.

And Malfoy, ignorant of the reminiscence dwelling in Harry's mind, blathered on.

"This time, I will take over the punishment myself. All summer, I have been under the tutelage of Aunt Bella and Evan Rosier. Believe me, the scars will take a lot of time to heal now. _Much_ more than they used to in our childhood."

Malfoy smirked.

A slit-eyed, enraged look was all the warning he got as Harry whipped out his wand and jabbed it right under the blond's neck.

"A word more," Harry breathed out. His Avada Kedavra-green eyes blazed with dangerous fire. "A word more from you, Malfoy, and you will find out why they call _me_ the best duellist in our year instead of you."

The aristocrat gulped, and Harry dug the tip of his wand deeper as Malfoy's Adam's apple bobbed.

Harry pressed his lips into a tight line and tightened his fingers around his holly wand. _Restraint. Where are you when I so need you?_

And then the flames in Malfoy's own blue gaze shone brighter with unspoken challenge.

"Mudblood."

A second later, Harry felt disgusting wetness on his cheek, wetness that immediately tracked down the smooth porcelain skin.

Malfoy had spat at him. _Spat_ at him. Literally. The realisation crashed home and whatever benevolent ideas Harry might have had this evening all vanished into stardust.

"Crucio," Harry hissed. No fury in his voice, no useless spittle. This cold calmness trumped any loud proclamations of vengeance and justice, and the fear reflected in Malfoy's face when the teen opened his mouth to fix his mistake only fuelled the bloodthirsty predator in Harry, the one cultivated by Draco's beloved Auntie Bella when Harry had gotten nothing but harsh life lessons from the woman.

The blond fell back. His whole body twitched and convulsed for a second before his voice tore through the pleasant classical music floating in the ballroom.

Harry's eyes widened. The people! How could he have been so careless? The firewhiskey and the painful recollections had addled his brain, it seemed, and now he had a teensy problem on his hands.

Namely, the watchful eyes of the spectators, all appalled and astonished and frozen in place, some remaining mid-step in the interrupted dance.

Draco didn't stop convulsing.

"What is going on?" the voice, cold as the glaciers of Arctic, rang through the room. _No. It's not possible. He can't be here right now. He-_ "What are you doing with my son?"

Harry turned his head to the source of the voice. His memory hadn't failed him. Lucius Malfoy – _bloody Lucius Malfoy!_ – was approaching him and- Oh hell. Was it Dark Lord Voldemort himself trailing not far behind?

"Answer me!" the blond demanded in a low voice.

Harry paled.

It all plummeted down from here.

* * *

Author's Note: Yeah, a bit of a cliffy, sorry. But the next chapter will be quite long (ab. 7,000 words) and I'll put it up by the end of the month, so I hope you aren't angry :)

I'm very busy this week, but the next one I'll be uploading some of the chapters of new fics (and rewrites) I've done, and all my stories _interest me equally right now_. So, when I'll have updated the first chapters of new stories/rewrites of old ones, I'll be mainly looking at the number of responses to them. If you are truly interested in this fic and want me to pay major attention to it and not to the other stories, it's probably a good idea to leave a review. They motivate me best, you see :D

But don't fret, even if I don't update frequently, I invest a lot in my stories, and will eventually complete each one of them. Eventually.


	2. Chapter 2 Come Crumbling Down

Disclaimer: Neither Harry Potter nor Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort belong to me. Nor do any other characters you recognise (or don't recognise but know are canon). I'm simply dabbling in the wonderful magical world Rowling has created, and experimenting with what its characters can be like when put in situations differing from canon.

The plot and a couple of concepts that will actively run through this story are mine though, so I'd appreciate if you didn't copy them into your works without permission.

Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, faved, followed, or plain liked this story! I didn't expect this kind of feedback at all, so while initially this chapter was supposed to be uploaded only on Sunday, you have motivated me to hurry up a bit :)

Thanks to you all again, and I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

* * *

_Last Chapter: _

_Harry turned his head to the source of the voice. His memory hadn't failed him. Lucius Malfoy – bloody Lucius Malfoy! – was approaching him and- Oh hell. Was it Dark Lord Voldemort himself trailing not far behind?_

_"Answer me!" the blond demanded in a low voice._

_Harry paled._

_It all plummeted down from here._

* * *

**Chapter 2. Come Crumbling Down**

* * *

Harry's mind buzzed with emotions, feelings, those foreign entities that the haze of alcohol had borrowed from him for the evening and seemed reluctant to return.

He tried to soothe his wildly beating heart, which flapped with the desire to break away from its bony prison, but the fear only pushed it harder and harder.

_Voldemort. Bloody Voldemort is here, and the only thing I can do is stand here about to be reprimanded like a naughty child._ Harry paused in his thoughts. A ray of light pushed through the cloud of depression. _At least, the pureblood prig has got what he deserves._

Meanwhile, Malfoy seemed to realise that the curse had stopped. His thrashing broke off, the body suddenly still and subdued, bereft of all its ordinary poise and arrogance. A whimper. Then another one, and once again. The time stilled as the entire ballroom watched with morbid and detached interest the social failure of the Malfoy heir.

They wouldn't forget it. Not for a long time, at least.

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry observed as Lucius Malfoy's infuriated expression snapped into view. Yes, there it was, the pulsing vein on the forehead and the thinning lips, familiar to Harry through the lenses of his childhood, when Harry had continuously and stubbornly proclaimed his views, _his parents' views_, on muggleborns and muggles and the politics of the Wizarding World, only to wind up those Malfoy snowmen until the rage melted the ice.

He had done it to get a hint of familiarity, a proof that the world, while not the same as he had known it, was still there and that Harry wasn't surrounded only by icebergs with cores of cause and pureblood beliefs.

And those experiments had always cost him.

Cost him just as much as this latest stunt would, Harry knew.

Then, his resolve spiked and steeled and finally morphed into a shield which protected him against the threats and promises of torture and pain.

Harry's eyes snapped to Lord Voldemort.

The man was easily recognisable, _stunning in his statuesque splendour_, a thought sneaked in past the screen of reluctance to admit a remotely good feature in his parents' murderer. He stood tall and strong, safely wrapped in a veil of delicious Dark magic, pale, with thin lips and red eyes.

Eyes which were fixed on Harry.

The young man suppressed a shudder. Just then, when Voldemort's lips curled into a taunting smirk and those eyes sharpened with a smug gleam, the familiar tremble in his hands battered the fleeting fascination away, like it would an annoying fly.

_What am I doing? Oh no, Dark Lord, you can hypnotise anyone with this freaky gaze but me. Never me, you hear?_

Stubbornly, Harry raised his head.

He would never surrender to _him_.

"How interesting, Lucius." Harry watched with disbelief as Lord Voldemort chuckled. He was not supposed to chuckle! A Dark Lord must roar in anger, spittle, bristle, rave, and rage, but not do something as human as this. "Is this a newest toy of yours? A pet project, perhaps? I don't believe I have ever seen him in our gatherings."

"Maybe because I have never attended them." Harry paused, his spirit high with delight at the widening of Voldemort's eyes. Had the man expected him to stand still like a naughty child and wait for his sentence while being treated like a clueless flobberworm? "My Lord," he added, lest the man thought him rude.

Which he usually was, but... Few had the gall to spit it into his face _and_ come out of it uncursed.

"_It_ talks," Voldemort drawled mockingly, taking a few steps forwards. Yet, despite the amused exterior, there was a murderous bastard skulking under the very surface of the carefully maintained self-control.

_My second encounter with the man face to face, and he's about to tear me apart. Something tells me he _will_ retaliate if I push it too much. Hell, he'll probably retaliate anyway, just for the heck of it._

_It would have been so dull otherwise._

The ballroom stilled. Where before had been attempts to ignore Malfoy's piggy cries or Harry's disruption or even Lucius's hissed demands to let the Dark Lord strangle him, now the almost-seventh years and their relatives and dates – the elite guests mingled in another lounge, leaving the other attendees here – all stared, and evaluated, and gawped, and judged.

They would. Of course they would, with Voldemort there.

Harry was mindful of the guests, all gathered around them in tight groups and observing, hawk-eyed, the proceedings. Every word he said would be picked apart and judged; his reactions would be carefully surveyed and then recorded in the cunning minds of wizarding future generation.

Was he twisted for enjoying the attention?

"I am sorry, my Lord," Harry called out and slipped on a most guileless, somewhat slow smile he used on Bellatrix when her demands shattered the boundaries of possible and smashed the definitions of impossible into invisible dust. In other words, every time she asked things of him.

Harry watched. If his concentration hadn't been so intense, he would have missed the sharp inhale of breath and the smile full of teeth that flickered across the pale lips for a second.

Danger, danger, danger.

The teen forced himself to relax and present a tranquil and casual posture instead of tensing and shrinking into a tight ball of weeping nerve.

"I supposed you would be able to tell just by looking that I am neither an object nor a magical creature to be called 'it', but then again, your sight can be deteriorating. It must be the age. How old are you again? One hundred something, correct?"

"_Crucio_," the Dark Lord drawled leisurely, his red eyes gleaming with unleashed fire. He didn't even take out his wand, Harry noticed. And then a shroud of pain enveloped him and he couldn't think anymore.

_pain pain pain pain pain-_

_smouldering searing scorching burning-_

_in every part of his body, every limb and every inch of skin-_

_breaking splitting everlasting-_

It hurt. Truly hurt, like nothing Harry had ever experienced before. Not even the whippings, canings, stinging hexes, milder pain curses or anything else Bellatrix dealt out in a burst of morbid inspiration and a caprice to see him punished could quite measure up.

The Cruciatus Curse broke a lesser man. Harry was strong, _had _to be after years of steeling reprimand, physical and emotional and psychological...

And yet...

He screamed.

Vaguely, through the haze the pain brought on, he made out jeering laughter and a couple of wolf-whistles, and someone spurring the spell on. A familiar voice, probably Blaise Zabini's's, shouted something about "wine and spectacle".

_Bloody bastards. Oh yes, nothing truly improves appetite as much as a bout of random torture before dinner. _

He chuckled through the pain, the sound grating and half-screeching, and he distinctly knew what a sight he must be making: on the floor, black hair unbound and askew and falling in a messy halo around his head, green eyes half-lidded, tears stubbornly held back in the corners of those eyes but still there...

And laughter, mixed with screaming, all hoarse and loud.

It had been his mother's tip, a parental advice that Harry took a bit too much to heart.

_"Laughter doesn't solve your problems but it makes shadows fade so much. And pain, too, will die away. Remember, Harry, your Mummy wants to see you smile, always, even if it seems hard to you, even when you feel like crying. Just smile, and in good humour whatever trouble you will face, will look insignificant, like a bug. A stubborn bug, sure, but still a bug,"_ his mother had once told him after Harry had scraped his knees and couldn't stop the tears trickling down his chubby cheeks. Then she had planted a tender kiss on his forehead, one of those things about the childhood paradise he truly missed, and smiled, and took him out to eat some ice-cream.

That moment, her words became a guiding light which Harry followed with reverence like a sailor would a guiding star.

"My, my, what a screamer. I am glad to see you are enjoying this, child," the velvety baritone brought him back to reality, and Harry cursed in his mind.

"As redundant... as it sounds," he croaked through his own desperate chortles, not paying attention to the gasps at his continuing cheek, "when life... hands you out lemons, try... making lemonade. Never knew... that Crucio leaves such a... strong acidic taste in the mouth."

"It does. There are always opportunities to learn and know better," the Dark Lord's calm, deceptively _normal _if entertained voice stated. "And if you wish to, I can help you turn the Cruciatus Curse from a brief acquaintance into friend. Of course, I need your permission first."

The pain intensified.

_Twat. He knows he can do anything that comes into his head. _

Harry set his jaw. He refused to show his weakness, refused to cry, refused to scream or beg.

_Happy thoughts. Laughter. Mother._

Through a cloud of tears – from laughter? Or from pain? He didn't know anymore, couldn't tell anymore – Harry picked out a tall frame, a person clad in pitch black, the engulfing spot of darkness amidst the sea of colourfully dressed guests.

He laughed harder.

Laughing through pain was hard; it required concentration to break through, so the process took Harry's mind off the Crucio and preserved it, not letting insanity claw at him.

_Mother. Lily. I'm following your advice, see? Nothing can touch me. Nothing can faze me. He is like those shadows you talked about, and even though you were talking about pain, he brings nothing but hurt and sorrow either._

"Father," Harry distinctly heard Malfoy Junior address his parent. The voice was shaky and hoarse, not at all his usual drawl, and, contemptuously, Harry rejoiced. "Has Potter finally gone insane? I told you this would happen. You owe me a broom now. My seventh one, I believe? Anyway, this time my heart longs for some vintage. Do they make-"

"Has the education at Hogwarts become so lacking that they are _breaking_ children now? It seems I need to have a word with Dolohov." There were notes of displeasure in the Dark Lord's voice but before Harry could chew it over – attempt to, because coherent thought only barely withstood the lasting ache, and all those remnants of brain activity summoned only those memories and contemplation which went back to his happiest, freest hour – they vanished just as quickly, and then it didn't preoccupy him anymore.

Swiftly, just as silently as it came, the agony fizzled out.

_It's over._

He was free now. Free from the burning metallic shackles of ache and suffering, free from the suppression of the other's magic.

Harry bolted upwards.

The world around him shook and swam. His throat was parched and swallowing had become a problem. Something clogged in his throat.

He coughed. Bringing his hand to his mouth, Harry tried to stifle it, but the feel of something clumpy and slimy forced his lips apart, and the coughing strengthened.

When he peeled the hand away and inspected the trembling fingers, they were dripping blood.

"A Cruciatus side effect," the Dark Lord explained, reminding the teen of his existence. "Happens to everyone."

Harry opened his mouth to retort, eyes ablaze, but it took him one look at Voldemort's gentle smile of a shark and sinfully red eyes to remember that this was the man he had sworn vengeance on, and Harry changed his mind, furiously berating himself for being so careless tonight and especially in the interactions with the Dark Lord.

Harry cursed.

_I cannot allow him to take interest in me. I have been so carefully keeping to my facade of a magically strong but not very bright guy for so long... I can't fuck it all up _now_. _

Then, his world dangerously tilted. Harry felt sleepiness unite her effort with darkness as both abstract entities that didn't exist outside of his perceptions worked on hushing him to slumber.

The headache sneaked in.

Unable to resist the lulling promises of darkness, Harry swung his body back and crashed into the floor again. The cool surface cooled his cheek nicely and Harry nuzzled into it, not minding the bystanders, most of whom had scurried off under the menacing gaze of the Dark Lord minutes ago, probably sometime during his inappropriate display of forced hilarity.

There was no way their opinion of him could sink any lower.

_Mmm... Marble. Sometimes, I just love the stuck-up purebloods and their antics...But honestly, do their feet never feel cold in winter?_

"Potter!" came Lucius Malfoy's enraged hiss as Harry found himself roughly prodded with a boot. _Beaten, more likely. His foot certainly doesn't take hostages. My ribcage is about to split._ "Don't you dare relax here while my son is suffering the consequences of your actions."

"If you haven't noticed, Mr Malfoy, _I_ am suffering the consequences of my actions," Harry remarked dryly, but the older men ignored him, while Malfoy Junior sent him a smug smirk and raised a mocking brow.

Harry didn't retaliate because he knew he deserved it. Tonight was uncalled for, and he attributed the loss of control to the letter he had received the day before...

_Ah, it isn't a good idea to think about _that_ here. The Dark Lord is a genius at Legillimency, and I am pants at Occlumency. Obviously, we don't mix._

"Have more decorum, Lucius," the Dark Lord reprimanded. Malfoy sharply looked at him, only to lower his head in submission at the hard expression of his lord. Words, however, he could not restrain.

"But- My son! You won't let it go, my Lord, will you?"

"The boy will get his punishment-"

_This wasn't it?_ Harry thought with horrified disbelief. His muscles, his limbs, his skin, his bones, his _hair_ all itched with lingering pain, and the minor wound on his leg he had dealt to himself much earlier in a private training didn't help any.

"-but if he desires making a further disgrace and laughing stock out of himself, why not let him? Unless, of course, he does want to preserve whatever dignity is left in him. In this case, he will do well to stand up and tell his name." Warning tones entered the last sentence.

It wasn't an offer. Wasn't a suggestion. Not even an order.

Propped up on his elbows, Harry heard the clear threat the man's baritone and had to suppress a surge of hatred.

"Of course I will, my Lord."

He scrambled to his feet and dusted his robes. Thankfully, the dust-repelling charms cast on the floors functioned well, so Harry's simple but stylish dress robes remained as clean as ever. He despised the overdone, garish garments that most of the wizarding population seemed to favour, but neatness and order? Those were a must.

Lord Voldemort didn't help him get up, of course. Harry suspected he wouldn't, because Dark Lords were prats like this and never willingly assisted until threatened or forced or coerced, which was as likely as Hermione Granger suddenly proclaiming she was going to throw out her books and go play Quidditch.

"Your name, child?" At Harry's confused look, the Dark Lord waved his hand in impatience and irritation. "You amuse me."

_Thanks. Do I get the proud title of court jester?_

But Harry knew that he had overstepped, had over_run_, the boundaries for the night, and he wouldn't get away with a few minutes of Crucio anymore.

If a Dark Lord was out for your blood, your blood he got.

Just look at Harry's parents for reference.

"Harry Potter, my Lord," Harry said carefully, tonelessly. He conjured up a hair tie to gather his messy black hair into a ponytail. When he raised his eyes, the frown on the Dark Lord's face didn't startle him.

Harry waited. This sort of reaction was as familiar as the Lumos incantation or the sight of his own wand.

"Potter?" Something sparked in the red orbs but blankness swept it away in a second. "I have heard of the surname but I have never met _you_."

Harry's eyes swung Voldemort's way, disbelieving, outraged, seething-

Nothing. No recognition, no memories of their only encounter, the one encounter that could have changed Harry's attitude to the Dark Lord for the better but hadn't, because the man had blundered the opportunity up, was too stubborn to-

He was angry. And he was rambling.

"Of course, my Lord," Draco Malfoy butted in, his face a beam of pure conceitedness and pride in self. "His breeding is too low for you to bother. Personally, I think-"

"Lucius," the Dark Lord ordered sharply, making the said man twitch in response. Harry surveyed, enraptured. "Your spawn is overly talkative today. Careful, if he continues being this cheery, I might reconsider giving Potter a punishment."

The younger Malfoy paled and ducked his head.

Harry gave the ballroom a cursory glance to find out that Malfoy's date had shrunk into the crowd, probably damning whatever preconceptions she might have had of a romantic evening with the pureblood heir, and the other guests were slowly seeping into the other, darker ballroom, filled with wizarding VIPs and usually forbidden to everyone but the notorious Inner Circle.

"Forgive me for asking, my Lord," Harry tried, straightening his back – the bloody thing cracked when he did it – and looking directly at the man, "but what is it going to be?"

"Elaborate," the man demanded imperiously.

"My punishment," Harry did. "You did douse me with Crucio already-"

"Are you truly so frail?" The Dark Lord raised a mocking eyebrow and stalked closer to Harry. The younger male refused to step back. "You are going to be a Death Eater, child, not a trophy wife. Some of my followers have to endure weeks of torture by the Light side. Months of unbearable pain. Slow, painful death. They have to endure it all for the cause, for their children, for _me_. When you start going out on missions, something as minor as _this_ will be the least of your problems."

By the time the last word of his reproach slipped off his tongue, the man towered over Harry, radiating his allure and seemingly not noticing the way everyone's eyes returned to them, seeking recognition from their Lord, desperate for the tiniest grain of attention.

_Malfoy must be dying of envy out there._ The tall and broad figure shielded him from viewing the blond. _He probably has never stood this close to his obsession._

Harry grunted and cringed away when spidery fingers landed on his shoulder and the man leaned in, mouth so close to his earlobe that his breath tingled the younger male's ear.

Harry wanted to push away. He told himself it was out of pure, undulated disgust without a taint of positive emotion.

The Dark Lord whispered.

"But it seems unlikely to me that you will break." Voice lowered as the hand tightened around the shoulder. "I have never seen you-"

And there it went again. That pang.

_You utter bastard. At least, you could have the decency of remembering._

"-but it doesn't mean I have never _heard_ of you." Voldemort leaned back and stood his entire height, his eyes oddly gleaming. "Harry Potter. Top duellist. Mastered the Slashing Curse at eleven, the Patronus Charm at thirteen, the Explosive Chain at fifteen... Remarkable. Truly remarkable. You will go far if you continue like this." He flashed Harry a dark smirk. "Believe me, _my _childhood was similar."

_Sharing this with me? _Harry's self-preservation instinct wailed and kicked. _No good. No good at all. What the hell does he need me for? Or-_

Harry's eyes didn't bulge out at the sinking suspicion only because of the self-discipline training he had done throughout years.

_Has he always been interested in me? Or is it a recent development? No, I doubt that even a Dark Lord would be as creepy as to keep tags on a 'useless child of traitors', so it must be the latter..._

The man watched him with amusement, head tilted back, waiting for Harry to show a reaction, to start speaking.

Harry opened his cramped fists.

_Why would he do that? If this interest has something to do with any latest events... Does he know about the letter, then? Was it traced? Is he waiting for the Marking Ceremony to start so he can execute me publicly? Damn, I knew I should have burnt it sooner!_

"Does it always take you so much to process things?" Voldemort queried lightly, although bright dots of impatience were now swirling around the irises. "Or are you too busy admiring your lord?"

Harry let it slip. There was nothing he could do anyway.

"My Lord?" Harry asked, treading on the knife's edge, fully aware that the knife would turn on him the moment the Dark Lord lost his weird amusement and disposed of Harry for something as mundane as breathing too loudly. Or not being a pureblood. Or being a traitors' son. Whatever worked, Harry supposed. "Is there... a reason for this sudden revelation? I mean, surely I'm not that important for you to track my achievements?"

"Why not?" A dark eyebrow shot up towards the hairline. "A student should be proud of having his achievements noted. Although..." Here, the man lifted a thin finger to stick it under the strong chin before drawling in a taunt, "You seem to be an exception in all regards."

"It's just-" Harry made a show of grasping for words. He could turn it all into a game: all he needed was to play the part of a boy overwhelmed with all the attention, first from the Malfoy heir, then from the guests, and now, as the cherry on the cake, the Dark Lord's. "It seems so surreal, my Lord. I have never met you before. I have never imagined meeting you. And now, when you stand in front of me and talk to me and show your interest in me-"

"Interest?" Voldemort's face distorted into a cruel jeer. "A necessity. Surely, you know who your parents were."

Harry bit his tongue.

_I know. I know, and I won't let you forget either. When you ordered their execution all those years ago, without a trial, without justice, you forged your own bane._

_And you had the chance to fix your fuck-up, my dear Dark Lord, but you screwed up even then. Well, it's not my fault you are a prideful creep with no life and no hobbies and guided only by your homicidal tendencies._

"Traitors," Harry whispered needlessly.

"To more than just blood," the Dark Lord agreed with an unpleasant curl of his lips. "You realise that we cannot let children like you, impressionable, with bad genetics, strut around without any monitoring."

"Of course, my Lord." Harry bowed his head, showing disarming submissiveness. "Aunt Bellatrix-" And oh how he loathed the name they forced him to call her! Yet, he picked his battles. This one wasn't worth it. "Aunt Bellatrix specifically impressed how difficult it will be for me to take my place as a respectable member of society and not part of the Resistance Movement."

Oh yes, that she had pounded into him time and time again, turning the entire thing into an unforgettable mantra.

The Dark Lord shot Harry a mocking smile before his hand crashed into Harry's shoulder again. This time, it was not a clutch but a pat.

Humiliating. Disgracing.

"Exactly. I wouldn't want to put to death such an asset as you, Harry Potter." The voice pitched lower, so low Harry had to strain his ears and allow it velvety quality caress his ears. "Your talents will be useful for the Dark Side. For our side. For my side. Don't make the mistake your parents have made. You will live to serve me or you will not survive at all."

Harry suddenly found his mouth run dry even as he tried to swallow. He sketched a bow, graceful like a feline, murmuring, "I cannot imagine a purpose higher, my Lord."

"Truly?" the man mocked, tilting his head to a side before pivoting on his heels and turning to the Malfoys who had been watching exchange boggle-eyed. Well, the elder had this constipated expression of safely strangled curiosity, while his son hadn't quite had the experience to master it yet, and thus assumed an eyes-as-wide-as-saucers look.

"The Marking Ceremony is starting in an hour," the Dark Lord announced, flicking invisible lint off his pitch black dress robe. "After your performance today, Potter, this one will be passed on to the next generation."

"Uncouth mudblood," Malfoy spat out. Harry ignored him.

Disregard of the stupid and the mentally challenged had been another lesson of Harry's mother. He heeded it, when he could.

"Your punishment," Voldemort announced, successfully drawing Harry's attention to his tall form.

"What about it?"

"Your guardian is Bellatrix Lestrange," the man stated, and Harry clearly made out the undercurrents of sick glee and viciousness.

The pendulum of Harry's awareness swung and hit him.

_No! He can't mean-_

"As your guardian, she has full rights to mete out the punishment she sees adequate." The Dark Lord, taking off and irritably motioning for them to follow, threw a backwards glance at Harry.

"My Lord, you mentioned that you need my talents," Harry started, his own pace controlled and graceful even as his heart fluttered in his chest and pulse drummed in his ears.

"Need? Don't think too highly of yourself, insolent child. At the same time, yes, your aid will be beneficial for our cause."

"I won't be of much use to you if I am dead," Harry pointed out bluntly. Once again, he ignored Malfoy's quiet 'as if'. "So, it is a bad idea to entrust my punishment and behaviour control to that woman."

The Dark Lord's lips curled into a smirk.

"Dysfunctional family? Be careful, sweet child. You mustn't air your dirty laundry. Some people might be desperate enough to snatch and use it."

"Then they are not people but unprincipled beasts," Harry rejoined, stuffing his hands into his pockets, thanking Merlin he had begged Madame Malkin to stitch them on.

He was about to continue, but the door to the other ballroom loomed into view, a short distance away.

"Go find your caregiver, Harry Potter," the Dark Lord murmured, suddenly even more poised and straight-backed than before. A dark mantle of alluring power, the very essence of magic descended on and blanketed him, just as envy burned its sneaky way into Harry's mind: he was no less powerful, and yet his skills didn't even approach such instantaneous control over his own magic. "If you are having trouble with a _fragile woman_, I will make sure you survive your punishment myself."

With those words, the Dark Lord prowled off to enthrone himself in the centre of the room.

He didn't even turn around. Why did it sting?

_Bellatrix? Fragile woman, my arse! If His Highness deigned talking to the common folk, they would have quickly disillusioned him. Then again, the Dark's Lord's definition of 'fragile' might just include snapping necks, breaking arms, and hurling poisoned daggers into people's eyes. Simple, really._

From behind, someone grabbed his collar and whirled him around. Harry came face to face with Lucius Malfoy.

"It is not the end of it, mudblood," the man hissed.

Harry raised a mocking eyebrow and tilted his head to the side.

"Of course not. We are yet to be marked, Mr Malfoy. This is the point of the entire evening and did you really think I would go home after a pleasant chat with your son and the Dark Lord?"

Malfoy gritted his teeth but didn't stoop to the common display of human emotion and glower. Then, his eyes narrowed to slits as he spat out, "Do you wish to resurrect your childhood, Potter?"

Harry laughed.

It was a hollow laughter, bereft of joy, of humour, of optimism... even bereft of those morsels of purpose which had chipped in to keep his sanity intact under the blast of Crucio earlier.

Harry thought it suited him. It mirrored the emotions found in himself sometimes, when his facade crumbled down and left mere ruins of his personality, with only the cobblestones of goal resisting the collapse. Empty, empty, empty... What would it take to build up the castles of his childhood again, full of hopes and dreams and happiness, in place of the dilapidated shack it was now?

"You have misaimed, Lucius," Harry took care to enunciate the name. The vein was protruding on the aforementioned man's forehead again. Typical of their confrontations. "I am not this seven-year-old anymore. Remember: I can hex you now. And will pounce on the opportunity, actually. Oh, and pull this stick out of your arse; it has been stuck in there just for... your whole life, maybe?"

Harry flapped his eyelashes a few times in a model imitation of Parvati Patil. Malfoy's face shut down.

"You wield your insolence like a shield," he finally intoned, grey eyes blowing cold as they visually stabbed. "You imagine it to be an absolute protection against all foes and throes. And this will be your downfall. For now, I shall allow you this whim and indulge you, but another transgression, Potter-" His voice turned fierce and Harry dared not breathe. "-and I will rip apart this farce of a shield, will bring you down with words and leave you weeping on the floor."

Harry allowed a tiny smile play around the corners of his lips.

"Strong words to say, Lord Malfoy," he acknowledged, this time dismissing the man's given name in favour of his title. "Alas, as much as talking to you delights me, I have a deranged 'aunt' to find."

Harry breezed past the stoic pureblood.

He got to the farthest wall of the ballroom before he allowed himself to exhale and relinquish, even partly, the tight leash he had on himself. The tense muscles gradually relaxed when Harry caught sight of the table with drinks.

_Not again_, he told himself firmly.

Instead, Harry surveyed the ballroom.

He had never been there. Not even Malfoy or Nott were allowed. Most of the Dark Lord's guests mingled in the other, what was called "common" ballroom, and only the most upscale guests and Inner Circle members had access to this part of the castle.

Every year, only one night allowed – well, more like demanded – all ordinary seventh years there. They would get the mark – and off to Hogwarts in a day, already legal Death Eaters.

He abhorred it.

Harry knew he was scowling, yet it didn't matter: he stuck out like a sore thumb in this mass of spick-and-span dressed people, all owning shops and manors and shares, all forcing out laughs and giggles despite the hidden desire to smash their companions' heads and rob them of those shiny gold galleons-

How pathetic.

His gaze stumbled upon Lucius Malfoy conversing with his wife now, her hand held gently in his as they slowly made way to the centre of the ballroom, not far away from where the Dark Lord's throne, surrounded by a swarm of brightly dressed buttlickers, plonked.

_Upscale racist couple reunited_, Harry thought with a detached amusement just as the man stooped over to whisper into Narcissa's ear, to which she replied with a silent gasp she stifled with a manicured hand. Her eyes turned cold. _Talking about me, I presume. It might be a good idea to reinforce the wards around my room today. Just in case._

Harry's gaze drifted further.

And halted.

In the middle of a group of wildly crowing wizards there stood she. A grin split her face in two, her black curls bobbed around her gaunt face, and the pale, with a greyish hue, hand was holding the stem of a wineglass.

Bellatrix Lestrange.

In his childhood, this hazy year following his parents' assassination, the derision expressed by the society had nearly broken him. His recollections of that time included only the few shards of pride that remained after the sledgehammer of sharp words had smashed into it, and equally cruel indifference to his suffering. He would run to his room, ridiculously lavish but as cold as a Dementor's Kiss, lock himself up, and cry himself to sleep. He would sleep the day away until Bella came up to his bedroom and wrecked the locking charm on the floor, disregarding the bits of peace and quiet for Harry that shattered along with it.

The woman would laugh at his misfortune, then. Calling him a mudblood, she would taunt and mock and chortle, only to cruelly punish him when he snapped and fought back.

She loved breaking him.

Now, Harry knew all the petty tricks in her arsenal; knew the ways to neutralise them and the ways to turn them into his own weapon he could smash right in her smirking face.

When he had been seven, though, he hadn't. Her attitude had traumatised him more than he would ever admit.

_It's time to remind myself of her. I can't avoid her forever. Unfortunately_, Harry chided himself mildly and tucked a lock of black hair behind his ear.

Every great journey started with a single step, right?

And here he took it. See? Not hard. Not hard at all.

Trying to envision it as a leisure stroll rather than the walk to the chopping block, Harry ambled to the other side of the dark ballroom, carefully manoeuvring whenever he touched upon the dancing zones.

He almost froze in his tracks when her eyes darted from Avery to Harry.

A startled o-shape of lips twisted and morphed into a wide grin.

No way out now. Harry's pride would not allow him to back out, would be screaming and bucking and jerking against it, even when his childhood memories would pull him away and lull him into the safety of the shadowed corner.'

Just a step away. A mere step. And now-

"My faithful followers!" the voice rang through the ballroom, stilling the music, stilling the dancers and the idle chatterboxes. A shiver of anticipation ran down Harry's spine.

After all, despite how much Harry hated the man and would love to see him shackled on the other side of Harry's wand, the teen had come to terms with his eventual Death Eater-ish fate and couldn't rebuff the opportunity to see how Marking worked.

One day, he might even topple it.

The Dark Lord rose, generously allowing his groupies to pile at his feet as some of them bent over to literally lick his leather boots, while others had starts in their eyes and drool trickling down their chins as they silently worshipped him.

Harry grimaced.

_Show-off _and_ a ponce. Dear Dark Lord, is there an end to your drawbacks?_

Yet, even he could not deny the aristocratic majesty with which Voldemort carried himself nor the undeniably enthralling aura. No wonder he captivated the public with his charm.

"The obligatory Marking Ceremony has been held for fifteen years," the Dark Lord continued as he crept in the darkness, black cloak billowing around him in a Snape-like fashion. Everyone knelt; and longing hands reached for the fabric of his robes to touch this magnificence embodied in a seemingly middle-aged man. The hemline mischievously danced away from those grasping fingers.

The man motioned for them to get to their feet.

"This year is no different. Tonight, the following students will receive the pleasure and the responsibility to become my loyal Death Eaters: first, Hannah Abbot!"

The girl, dressed in cheap material and with straw-coloured hair askew around her plump cheeks, stumbled through the crowd to the Dark Lord. She stopped in front of him and knelt again.

"My Lord," she murmured reverently, pupils in her brown eyes dilated, as if she couldn't believe this wasn't a dream.

"Your hand," the Dark Lord demanded and, when she failed to provide it fast enough, roughly wrested it to him. "_Morsmordre!_"

For a moment, all was silent.

She screeched.

_Today is obviously a bad day for my eardrums,_ Harry decided, discreetly casting a sound-lowering charm. _First Malfoy, then myself, now this ceremony, then... it will be me screaming there._

The unmerciful echo carried her bawl through the ballroom, magnified the sound. And the spectators didn't help her, only watched on and retained a solemn silence even as she held out a hand to ask for help, even as her screams died down in her throat and, slowly, gradually, the spot where to Voldemort had pressed his wand before, augmented and took shape.

Morphing, shaping itself, the nonsensical random spot rearranged into a picture: a black skull with a snake slithering out of its mouth.

A symbol that would soon adorn Harry's own arm.

The arms of all present here.

Abbot glimpsed the mark and squeezed out a tiny grin before passing out. Soundly. With a resonating _thud_.

"Weakling," someone sneered.

"The kids are too young to withstand the pain," Lord Greengrass chided behind Harry. "Their cores are a step away from fully developing, so it hurts way more than it would an adult wizard."

Still keeping his head down, Harry blinked.

_Then why? Why did Voldemort choose this particular age for them to get marked? Al of them were seventeen already, some even days away from eighteen... Strange. And I doubt he is doing it simply to satisfy his sadism._

And on it went.

Each one of his classmates ended up on the floor with a lost consciousness. Even Hermione Granger, a resilient mudblood whom Harry actually tolerated bumped onto the marble after receiving her mark.

"Harry Potter!"

Harry clamped his fingers into the tender flesh of his palm.

In an imitation of the Dark Lord's saunter, he arrived to the centre of the ballroom and knelt, just like the others before him.

His hand was viciously yanked before he could offer it. "_Morsmordre!"_ The words were a deadly sentence and for a second, when the burning sensation flooded him, Harry wished it were indeed lethal so he could escape the misery-

_"Smile, Harry! Your mother wants you to live and be happy, my beloved son. Surely, you will grant me this wish? Live as unburdened and free of pain life as you can, and you will make your mother happy."_

Harry raised his head and met the Dark Lord's gaze. Ruby clashed with emerald, red with green.

A smile bloomed on his face.

The Dark Lord's eyes widened and his poker face fell down like a house of cards, soundlessly but surely, and Harry savoured the triumph. The wings of victory carried him over the rest of the pain and it ended before he could comprehend the extent at which he was hurting.

His mind cleared and he hadn't fainted.

The only one here.

Whispers broke out behind him and Harry only stretched his lips in a cold smile when the angry, resentful, envious mumbles of 'mudblood' and 'traitors' son' prevailed.

Nothing new here.

"And I must repeat," the Dark Lord broke the background buzz, "_remarkable_, Mr Potter. If you complete your assignments as a Death Eater and be less of a nuisance to the wizarding community, we can forgive the taint in your heritage and award you a silver mask." His smirk gained a hint of mockery to it. "Only if you behave."

On the outside, Harry's demeanour didn't switch back from the demure one he had adopted during the second part of the evening, after all the damage he could do had been done.

On the inside, a surge of inspiration pierced him.

_Oh, I will. Outwardly. I will become your best Death Eater, your right-hand man, the very pillar of your power. You will rely on me and trust me implicitly... And I will be the one to drag you down._

_Actions always have reactions to them, my Lord. Just because you wield power, you are not exempt from them._

* * *

Although receiving the mark hadn't been as painful for him as for the others, not least because of a Crucio received on the same day, the spot still stung. And Harry still felt unclean because of the brand. Tainted.

He had to shower. Now.

A house elf handed out the portkeys to the guests, and Harry held out his arm to take one. Just as his lips formed to utter the password, someone halted him.

"I admit I am reluctantly impressed, Mr Potter."

Harry spun. He hadn't mistaken the voice; his newly appointed "master" was observing him, leaning lazily against the wall.

Harry flicked a casual glance to the side. No one in the room bar the elf.

"You have said it already," slipped out before Harry could catch himself.

Voldemort stuck off the wall and advanced to Harry, making the young man jerk back.

"And will be repeating it endlessly if you continue to amaze me." He invaded Harry's personal bubble like it was nothing, his presence like a pointy needle. Harry's eyebrow twitched and the teen forced himself to count in mermish. Sometimes, it helped. Sometimes, it didn't.

"I believe we will see each other again," the Dark Lord exhaled into his neck.

_I hope not. But you are going to brutally murder my optimism, right?_

Harry rushed the portkey to whisk him away.

* * *

Next Chapter: Hogwarts.


	3. Chapter 3 Would You Dare to Unravel Me?

Author's Notes: Hello! I'm so incredibly stumped at all the support you have showered me with so far! I- I can't find any words, thank you!

On the not-so-good note, I have to warn you that this chapter is talk mostly. I'm going on- well, it's not a hiatus, since I'll still be writing, but I won't post for about two weeks. So, while originally this chapter was supposed to be a bit longer, I figured that this is still better than nothing, right?

Also, it'll let you in a bit on what the Light side is doing, but please remember: there's much more under the surface, and all the movements of the Order are a mystery to anyone but the Dark Lord and his Inner Circle. As Harry gains more influence in the ranks, he's going to be allowed to the facts which are concealed for now, so some things Light wizards do might be confusing at times or not make any sense, and some might be known to Harry only through his spying in on Bellatrix.

Next chapter, though, is going to be very long and it'll show Hermione, Ron, and Snape, too, as well as first glimpses of Harry's manipulations and duelling capacities.

Enjoy!

* * *

_Last Chapter:_

_"I believe we will see each other again," the Dark Lord exhaled into his neck._

I hope not. But you are going to brutally murder my optimism, right?

_Harry rushed the portkey to whisk him away._

* * *

**Chapter 3. Would You Dare to Unravel Me?**

* * *

Crafting his mask had not been easy, Harry reflected.

He was sitting by his lonesome in the bright red train that would take him to Hogwarts, in one of the farthest compartments, and the greenery was flashing by through the window. The familiar sceneries he admired every year brought on a wave of reminiscence on him, tranquil and mildly puzzling.

After all, one hint of Harry's true face, one glimpse of the hazard creeping around in the depths of the emerald orbs – and a Cruciatus Curse would be the least of Harry's problems. Especially if they found out the extent to which he detested Lord Voldemort.

So, since his childhood, Harry understood the concept of _hiding_.

Strangely, the process of establishing his mask had been a lot like... potions.

One speck of insolence here (not to look like a complete toe-rag), a handful of bravery there (his parents _had _been Gryffindors, after all), a vial of guile and seeming foolishness to balance it all and cancel the inner cold-blooded killer – and all of it drowned in the base of general, if reluctant, obedience to the Lord. Oh, and a touch of power to crack through – so that no one dared dispose of him or deem him undeserving because of his parentage.

Perfect.

Avoid displaying too much grace or poise, but let 'em hear a whisper of hidden power and potential strength.

Harry hadn't been arduously slaving away to build up his duelling skills just for the heck of it or out of a masochistic need.

Avoid openly sympathising with mudbloods and muggles and lowly creatures but do assist them sometimes, when no one can see or hear, when there are no risks for Harry himself to be labelled a 'blood traitor' or a 'muggle-lover', yet the other party fell swiftly into his debt.

And it had served his purpose.

_They _had noted him. The Order of the Phoenix had noted him.

_Just what I was aiming for._

Harry rummaged through his school bag and his nimble fingers fumbled for a hidden pocket underneath a stack of books he had taken out of the trunk to peruse during the train ride. He had warded the pocket with the help of Knockturn's best Master warder, and although not cheap at all, the results had pleased him: the wards were thin and untraceable and could hide any small object he did not wish to be seen.

Harry unzipped it and pulled out an envelope with worn edges and a single red scribble glaring up at him from the centre of it: "To Harry".

He hadn't burnt it yet.

Harry dragged out the letter, staring at it for a second.

It was ordinary. The parchment felt and looked cheap and didn't carry any charms, either active or passive, or enchantments. No wards shielded it. No curses bounced on him. Harry could set it on fire, rip it apart, throw it away into the dustbin, use as a dinner for the Slytherin common room fireplace, throw it into the water until the ink smudged and not even restoring spells deciphered the green letters anymore-

Yet, he had preserved it.

The envelope lay smugly in his lap even as Harry fiddled with the tatty edges of the parchments, green eyes staring off into space, at the flashes of nature behind the window without seeing any of it.

He pulled out the letter but didn't set out to reading; by now, he had memorised it by heart already. Could retell the contents in his sleep, the exact same wording burnt into the stony surface of his mind and memory.

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_You must be wondering why a stranger would send you a letter. Maybe, you have disposed of it already. Maybe, you are still keeping it. We don't have a sure way to know, I'm afraid._

_Human relationships... They can be beautiful bonds of deep friendship, of loyalty and affection. They can be ugly ropes of mutual hatred, like those of the deadliest foes. They can be the suppressive leash of compulsive obsession, sickening and jarring. They can be the gentle guiding thread of guardianship and mentorship._

_And the most beautiful, the most binding of all are the bonds of familial love._

_You must know a lot about familial love and loyalty, right, Harry?_

_After all, a person truly cherishes only the thing he has lost, when it is already painfully out of his reach, and his spirit wails in longing. You have had a lot of time to comprehend and consider it, I'm sure, considering the cruel way in which Lord Voldemort tore your parents away from you._

_You were so young at the time, so impressionable. So pure and untainted._

_I am sure you grieve your parents, Harry, as much as I am sure you want to avenge them, thus cleansing the bloodlust and the desire for vengeance dwelling in your heart at the moment._

_We can assist you._

_Your parents have laid their lives on the altar of duty to the Wizarding World. Their sacrifice is a symbol of Light courage and love and good. Their fought and shed blood, both theirs and their enemies', and hid their true views and committed crimes all in the name of the Greater Good, understanding the necessity as I hope you will, too._

_As their son, it is only obvious you admire their bravery and wish to follow in their footsteps, Harry._

_Despite Lord Voldemort's attempts to besmirch the history and the magic of Hogwarts, it is still a dwelling of Light, soaked with blood of the three Light Founders, their hopes, their beliefs, their love. It is not a fortress of the Dark. And the fact that the Light cannot truly take hold of it forcefully at the moment, does not mean that we cannot try... subtler methods to regulate the violence of Lord Voldemort's education._

_Alas, you understand, my boy, that despite out deep-held belief in the good of your heart, the risks of disclosing the way to contact us run too high._

_But fear not._

_Your father was a Marauder, a mischief-maker with a knack for finding things he shouldn't be finding. I'm sure you have inherited this little peculiarity and are now burning with curiosity and eagerness to discover. _

_We shall be awaiting you, Harry Potter._

_-Someone who wishes you good._

_Tha gall of the man!- Assuming things like this!_ Harry's fingers gathered into trembling fists as fury rolled off of him in waves. _And he dares fling my parents' names and deaths around like it is nothing!_

"Maybe I must incinerate it after all," Harry muttered darkly, his hand clenching the letter.

About to take his wand out of the holster, he blanched at the distant sound of footsteps steadily approaching the compartment.

Eyes wide and wild, Harry carelessly tucked the envelope into the hidden pocket of his school bag once more and mounted a couple of Ancient Runes and Dark Arts books on it, just as an extra precaution.

Oh, Harry had a hunch who was about to intrude in his bubble. He would get _extra_ vicious during the Duelling Classes.

The doors swung open.

Harry sharply looked up and narrowed his eyes in irritation before cocking an annoyed eyebrow.

"Zacharias Smith, there is such a socially acceptable practice called 'knocking'," Harry hissed in a scathing voice despite making room for the newly arrived. Reluctantly, he shoved a few books on the opposite seat to the side with his foot. "I promise, no one would complain if you used it."

Zacharias, a teen a year younger than Harry, shrugged his shoulders and plopped down on the cleared up space. The sunshine beaming through the window lightened his dirty blonde hair and illuminated dispassionate blue eyes which locked with Harry's green ones for a moment.

"Harry Potter, there is this wonderful Ministry- and the Dark Lord-approved spell called the "Locking Charm"," he drawled in a bored reply, snatching a small handbook on most popular duelling hexes and jinxes which was lying on the top of a small mountain of Harry's books. "Should I introduce you?"

Harry's eyes narrowed further, to the point where they were two cracks with green shining through.

"Magical Theory, first year," Harry deadpanned and elaborated at Smith's confused look. "No matter the level of a spell you use, a better wizard will know the counter-spell. And use it, of course."

A sly grin played on Zacharias's pale lips. "Admit me to be your better, Potter? Why, I never thought I'd see the day."

"Just quoting Crouch's words," Harry replied, his eyes flickering down to the Potions homework he had pulled out. Snape always got on his case, and Harry always delighted in nicking the chance to humiliate him from the man every time with his flawless performance and impeccable answers. "To what do I owe the pleasure, Smith? Don't tell me you have come here craving my companionship."

Zacharias sniffed and sneered, and replied after a short pause, "Don't insult me, Potter. I have more intelligence to lie to you so openly."

"And?" Harry prompted with a raised eyebrow and a tap on his cheek. "People retreat to the farthest compartments to enjoy their solitude, Smith. Not listen to blabbering fools or puzzling out useless riddles. Speak."

"I worried about you," Zacharias confessed, placing the duelling spells handbook back into the pile. He refused to meet Harry's eyes. "You have this unhealthy obsession with the Dark Lord. I'm not of the age yet, so I couldn't control you and rein you in." He threw Harry a pointed look. "And you needed it. Badly."

Harry restrained his emotions and suspicions to seep through as paranoia battled with the wish to finally open up and trust another human being.

Relying on himself only took a toll out of him.

_Yes, he knows. Somewhat. He is observant and a liability. I swear, if he hints at ever betraying this secret... Well, I don't object to killing nosy halfbloods._ He ignored the pang in his chest at the idea.

_Not that it will be needed. He is convinced my reasons for researching Voldemort are different. More... personal._

Meanwhile, Zacharias continued, "I've heard about this stunt you pulled on Malfoy- Not that I fault you, of course, the guy grates on everyone's nerves around here, and Granger will probably osculate you, but that's still stupid. Keep this up, Potter, and Weasley will be taking lessons on idiocy and rashness from you."

Harry threw him a sharp look, imbued with as much despise and derision as he could manage. Judging by Zacharias's wince, he had succeeded.

"Thank you from the reminder. Believe me, Voldemort's Crucio did a wonderful job on driving out all the moronic ideas coursing through my mind at the time and setting my brains straight." Harry rubbed his temples subconsciously. It hadn't been the most painful experience in his life, but-

"It must have hurt-" Zacharias started.

"You think?" Harry bit out before burying his nose in the Potions homework. _Now, what does it say about using the parts of people who annoy you in obscure potions?_

"Potter, I'm not a dunce. I'm not talking about the Cruciatus." Zacharias flicked the invisible lint off his top-notch black robes. "You couldn't be too happy with your crush- obsession cursing the daylight out of you."

Harry hid a grimace behind a nervous half-grin.

_That _was what Zacharias believed.

They had truly met each other for the first time in the library, while Harry was browsing through the books to scrap up the information on the Dark Lord. He had been so obsessed with all the searching that he hadn't noticed Zacharias standing by his shoulder with a sneer, and when the boy opened his mouth, the only excuse Harry could conceive of was that of a crush on their supreme ruler – it had been accepted, albeit not without a jibe or two, and now Harry had no choice but to keep up his facade in front of his only fr- close acquaintance.

Harry did not allow people to glimpse the person he truly was. Less dangerous this way.

Thus, he rearranged the mask that had partly slid down in Zacharias's presence and reinforced his acting.

"I don't want to talk about it, Smith," Harry snapped, making a show of being pained at the recollection, as he averted his eyes in faux sorrow. "Your efforts at staying sympathetic are half-arsed at best."

"Who says anything about sympathetic?" Zacharias grunted as his expression darkened at Harry's lack of appreciation. Suddenly, he drew up and whipped his head to the door. "Are the privacy wards up?"

Harry smirked and crossed one leg over the other, absent-mindedly accommodating the Potions textbook in his lap.

"Who do you take me for?" he drawled and a glint of his verdant eyes betrayed the pride and anticipation swirling in him.

Privacy wards had been the one thing Harry had learnt before he had hit ten-year-old mark, all thanks to his 'Aunt' Bella. The woman had spied on him herself and had ordered her husband and brother-in-law to rake through his things more than once, and after she had carelessly thrown away the only relic of Harry's father's...

_Well, let me tell you: learning a couple of fine privacy wards trumps scrounging the blood of the woman's bloody cronies she sent to burn it off the wall._

Harry allowed a tiny smirk play on his mouth even as his half-hooded eyes drank in how the sudden unease and shiftiness in Zacharias's posture morph into restrained cool.

_Good. At least, the boy's pureblood in manner._

"Usually one can feel the privacy wards washing over them," Zacharias remarked with a casual air around him but eyes so sharp they dispelled the illusion as soon as it jumped at Harry.

The green-eyed teen tucked a strand of hair behind his ear to get a clearer view of the Hifflepuff and shrugged. Dimples appeared on his cheeks as he shot the blond a smug grin.

"Maybe I am just that good," Harry said cheekily and chuckled at the sour look on Zacharias's face before clearing up this expression. "You are an exception." After a pause, Harry's face was a mask of frozen water. He redeemed, "Sometimes, you can be one, at least. That's why I've keyed you in. Nevertheless, don't stick your nose up yet: this trust can just as easily snap and vanish."

_And no, we are done with mushy talk for today. On to the business. Quick._

Seeing that Zacharias was opening his mouth, probably about to pour a shitload of sentimental drivel in response to Harry's uncharacteristic display of faith, when a held-out hand halted him.

"The wards are up. You've done your duties and been a good friend-" Harry mentally snorted; as if he needed such a thing for real. "-so now we can talk." A second later, he decided to add, "I have a hunch about what this might be."

Zacharias looked up at him sharply. When his blue eyes met a steely wall of Harry's gaze, he inclined his head and allowed his lips quirk.

"For someone who is rumoured to be all brawn and no brain, sometimes you can be almost smart, Potter," he intoned with a shake of his head. "Then again, I guess that by now even Crabbe has caught on that something is seriously wrong with the Light side."

Harry scoffed and leaned into the cushioned seat. It made him sad that even the compartment seats in a train of all places were comfier that Lestrange Manor's finest velvet-lined sofas. Then again, he reflected, Rodolphus always insisted on endurance-training and that one couldn't lounge in cushioned armchairs when he could train or set off on a road to enlightenment in the library.

"I highly doubt that bit about Crabbe," Harry muttered before his eyes sharpened with consideration. "This is brought on by today's Prophet, right?"

Zacharias met his gaze with a solemn inclination of his head, for once without a sneer or grimace on his face.

"It's caused quite a stir," he confirmed, and Harry could fully believe him. Outrage mixed with shock and speckled with anticipation had been brewing within him since the early morning, when Hedwig had delivered the newspaper to him.

Harry carded through his mess of black hair he had let loose instead of tying into a ponytail.

Quite frankly, the news had thrown him off balance and even pushed him to reconsider his dubious schemes of playing both sides of this game, something of a double spy, yet with his own agenda – vengeance. He had planned on the Order of the Phoenix to be their default sentimental, compassionate selves and believe his spouted tosh of wishing to leave the Dark side for good and to succumb to whatever leader the Light side had.

Of course, Harry would rather Avada himself than assume their naive beliefs of equality and empathy. Nothing prevented him from slipping through the cracks after the Dark Lord was over with, and if Harry would be unsatisfied with the Light side's Leader... He wasn't called a duelling prodigy for nothing. And assassination was as good a hobby as many.

"I can imagine," he lowered his voice to a not-quite-whisper. "To try taking hold of St Mungo's... How many of ours have been killed?"

Harry didn't honestly care for the answer. The Dark Side had nothing to offer him, and he had had to tolerate its cruelty and its bigoted slurs since day one out of his parents' care, but he had a role to play: that of an unassuming, somewhat cheeky and ignorant, but powerful and overall devoted (with a crush on the Dark Lord fuelling the misconception) little wizard.

Zacharias furrowed his eyebrows in consideration, his eyes drifting to the side while he mentally counted and analysed.

"About a dozen dead, half a hundred injured..." He let Harry chew on that before adding, "Rabastan was amongst the injured, you know. Isn't he the brother of your adoptive father?" Zacharias's voice was an uncaring drawl.

Harry waved him off with impatience, his mind already set on the first piece of information.

"Their attacks are getting more relentless," he noted needlessly, at which Zacharias sent a sneer and a 'no, duh' look. "Crueller, too. More ruthless. They aren't using the Killing Curse or Cruciatus on the battlefield yet, nor any other torture or painful curses, but they've moved on from _Diffindo_ and _Bombarda_."

Without his will guiding them, Harry's fingers traced the golden letters of the potions tome in his lap, this one the only present he had ever been given – by Bellatrix Lestrange, no less, in his first year at the manor.

"They are also more organised," Zacharias threw in and grimaced. "I've dived into the books – yes, Potter, you don't have to give me this look, I know how to read, which I seriously doubt you do – to conduct some research-"

"Yes," Harry interrupted, snapping his fingers in impatience and shooting the other teen a smouldering look. "They were fumbling fools in the beginning, without proper organisation of their ranks, with everyone swarming to the Dark wizards and flinging Light spells around in hopes that those would actually work- but that was then. One figures that in so many years common sense has finally hit them and their movements are smoother and smarter." Harry gave a pointed look. "Yesterday's attack only proves it, no?"

According to the Prophet – not the most trusted source out there, but decent enough in this kind of matters – the Light wizards had attempted to overtake the largest wizarding hospital in the UK. St Mungo's had held out until the arrival of reinforcements, but the few guards assigned to it had been unassuming and taken down quickly by the well-structured troops led by Kingsley Shacklebolt – the Undesirable number three or four, one of the few Order of the Phoenix wizards they had any knowledge about and who was more than a blank slate to them.

Two things disconcerted Harry about the attack.

One, it had been _too_ organised. Their forces had known where exactly to strike and where to sink under the radar and pass by unnoticed – and would have easily accomplished the latter, if one of St Mungo's guards, Goyle Sr., had not fluked and accidentally burnt a flower bed to kill a fly, just when a Light wizard – female, with oddly coloured hair – was sneaking by with a Disillusionment charm rippling around her. Her robe had caught the fire and her concentration on the charm was broken, thus attracting attention of the more competent guards, making them call on the hospital's wards and detect the other Light wizards lurking nearby.

The thing was, they had recognised the blind spot in the wards, the only hidden trail there, and they wouldn't have gotten this knowledge if they hadn't had a powerful ally in the Death Eater ranks... Harry himself had found out about the hole in the wards only while sneaking in on a conversation between Bella and Regulus, with the latter lamenting how even he couldn't do anything about it.

Had the Light wizards infiltrated the deeper parts of the Dark ranks than Harry had initially thought?

And another thing...

St Mungo's could be targeted for many reasons – the only wizarding hospital in Britain, a place with many potential hostages, a place which allegedly hosted the medical info on the Dark Lord of all people, and his real name, too, as well as the files on the entire wizarding population – including the injuries they had sustained, thus their weaknesses, and allergies and latent illnesses which could be triggered...

Yet, they had gone for the floor with the mentally ill patients.

This fact continued whirling about Harry's head, yet the teen couldn't fully grasp it, could only glimpse it like a golden sparkle of snitch in the mist before it would dance away from him.

_What use can it be? The insane are- well, insane. Unless the Order need advice on how to wreck tables with their heads or dance waltz in a tea cosy in the middle of the Ministry, I doubt they are going to help any. Unless-_

Harry's eyes narrowed and a thought was breaking through the walls of confusion, about to illuminate the situation, when he remembered about Smith, and about where he was. Harry's countenance cleared of all deep thought.

There were things he could share, and there were things he couldn't.

"We'll shape them into Dark wizards yet." A smirk adorned Harry's face. Zacharias snorted in reply and gave a one-shoulder shrug.

"They'd rather incinerate you before you even get close to their headquarters."

"How about finding those headquarters first?" Harry interjected and crossed his arms over his chest. "With all your patriotism to the Dark, you cannot deny that the Light have hid themselves remarkably well. No hide or hair of them anywhere. They appear on the battlefield like a bunch of righteous furies, attack whatever building they hope to get a hold of or Dark family they plan to obliterate, lose, and vanish. No faces. No remarkable traits. Despite their overwhelming losses, in all these years, there've been less Light wizards captured than Dark ones dead."

"Luck?" Zacharias ventured but sighed at the sceptical expression Harry wore. "I wouldn't dwell too much on it, Potter, and considering your dubious thinking capacities, you shouldn't either. They are bound to blunder soon. These skirmishes have been going on for more than a decade. I bet the Dark Lord is simply humouring them."

"Humouring?" Harry threw his head back and laughed. "I love our Lord-" _I must wash my tongue later._ "-but he's not omnipotent." Harry's laughter cut off as the teen engaged Zacharias's eyes in a hypnotising stare. "All of you are afraid to admit one thing: perhaps he's ignoring the problem not out of twisted pleasure but because things have long since spiralled out of his control?"

His sentence was met with silence, forlorn and a tad terrified. Harry's heart thumped in his ears, the noise loud and almost tangible and definitely heavy, a kind of pulsation that set his teeth on edge.

"Are you trying to get yourself creatively murdered, Potter?" Zacharias hissed, eyes flashing dangerously and his hands made to clasp the collar of Harry's school robe before he caught himself. "Malfoy would kill you for- ah, dishonouring the Dark Lord."

"Please, we all know Malfoy's star-struck fascination," Harry sneered and uncrossed his legs. Anxiety mingled with a sick anticipation: how did _Zacharias_ react? What were the thoughts running through _his_ head? "He would kill a butterfly if it dared flee from our Lord."

"Many others would, too." The words were a near-whisper.

Harry raised his eyebrow and his lips stretched in a cat-like grin. "I don't see you hurl Killing Curses at me."

Zacharias pressed his lips. "Yet. I somewhat like you, Potter, and, just for you to know, I'll shrug it off for now and pretend I've never heard this kind of sacrilege spoken of our Master, but others won't close their eyes on it."

Every word he said crashed on Harry's spirit like cobblestone and crushed his hopes just as heavily.

_So, he is like everyone else. Pity. I haven't mistaken in him completely; that tiny bit of trust I have is well-placed, t seems, since he hasn't hexed me for my 'blasphemy', but... he's not a person I can reveal even a tiny part of my plans to..._

Not that anyone ever would be worthy enough for Harry to unveil his schemes to, for him to share his true values and ideas and views.

Disappointment was a bitter taste of lemon in his mouth-

The thought of lemons reminded Harry of the Cruciatus, left the same acidic feel on the tip of his tongue. He stopped pondering it.

"Off you go, Smith. Your little entourage of friends is waiting." Harry picked up his potions textbook and leafed through the pages to check the units he had gone over. He didn't feel like continuing the conversation.

"I don't have friends," Smith groused in indignation and jumped to his feet. The few steps to the door, he bristled. When his hand grasped the handle, he spun and stated, "And you never will either, with this attitude of yours. Just because your parents were traitors and reaped the rightful punishment for it doesn't mean _you_ have to be a martyr about it." The door slammed.

Harry's knuckles went white but he didn't look up.

How could he, when he forced the disappointment out and substituted it with the plans and schemes he had to scour through and choose the best, the most appropriate?

_First things first_, Harry decided. He briefly contemplated whipping out a notebook to draw on, but those were too much of a liability: they could get into the wrong hands or he could lose them – highly unlikely yet possible. _If I worm into the Order's ranks, no one will prevent me from asking their reasoning or their battle plans or even simple plans. Surely, their whole existence isn't narrowed down to destroying the Dark Lord?_

_If so, they are kind of dull. _Harry dutifully ignored the glaring fact that his own life centred around his vengeance against the Dark Lord. _But nothing I can't work with. The letter mentions that I'll find them easily, and it mentions my father's Hogwarts years... Well, the conclusion is obvious: they have a spy at Hogwarts, too._

It didn't surprise Harry. A spy at Hogwarts would have the ability to not only tell Light wizards the ongoing happenings in the world more effectively than second rate Prophet articles – if one knew to listen in and spy, the children couldn't keep their mouths shut about their families, eagerly blabbering most private of events for moments of spotlight – but also detect the best students, like they had done with him, and search for ways to bring them to the Order's side – in Harry's case, the trigger was supposed to the memories of his parents and their working undercover for the Light.

One teensy problem for the Order?

_I have no intention of being their pawn._ Harry's hands clenched over the worn yellowed pages. _I'd sooner crush the chess board than be one more mindless servant for them._

He had made up his mind long ago.

Risky, dangerous, ambitious... thrilling...

_I will play with them both,_ Harry swore to himself. _The Order of the Phoenix had as much say in my parents' deaths as the Dark Lord, if not more. Both sides will trust me, think me a double spy but their own underneath, come to think of me as a right-hand man..._

_And perish._

The sooner he started searching for the leads, the sooner he would be free from the shackles of obligations to his dead parents. As much as Harry hated this sort of egoism in himself, his parents were long dead, yet their presences screamed revenge, and although he could do nothing but comply – _wanted_ nothing but comply – sometimes he resented them for pushing those duties on his shoulders.

No matter.

_Soon. In a year or so, it'll be over._

And he knew exactly where to start.

The train drew to a halt.

Hogwarts loomed over the lake, as majestic and beautiful and full of promise as ever, and intrigue was brewing in its halls and classrooms.

* * *

AN: Leave a review on your way out. It mightn't be a long one, but even words like 'I enjoy your story' motivate me a lot. If I see that my story isn't well received, it kind of drains me of the will to write, which leads to me writing at the speed of a drunk tortoise.


	4. Chapter 4 When a Spider Weaves His Web

**Author's Notes:** Hey! The reason for my not updating? Had some serious flat problems which had to be fixed and are too long and depressing to explain them in detail. Anyway, this chapter was actually (and still is) 11k-ish words long, but there was a moment in the second part, which was part of the reason I've split it.

**A QUESTION:** do you prefer the story to be completely Harry-centric? Or don't mind an occasional change of POV to Tom's or Dumbledore's or Severus's? In the next chapter I've written a (short) bit from Voldie's point, but if the majority of you want to faithfully stick to Harry, I'll simply keep it to myself and won't upload any of those bits.

Also, worry not, dear readers, the second part will probably be uploaded here by the end of the week. It would've been sooner, but today I found out that my professor has signed me up for a public speaking competition, and I'm now expected to draw up and memorise a speech, so my time is quite limited.

That said, thank you _immensely_ for all your heart-warming reviews!

* * *

_Last Chapter: _

_I will play with them both, _Harry swore to himself._ The Order of the Phoenix had as much say in my parents' deaths as the Dark Lord, if not more. Both sides will trust me, think me a double spy but their own underneath, come to think of me as a right-hand man..._

_And perish._

* * *

**Chapter 4. When a Spider Weaves His Web**

* * *

"Mudblood!" Goyle spat out. His beady eyes resembling those of a rat were running Harry's figure up and down, flames of lust in them mixed with flickers of hatred. The bulk he had acquired in his seventeen years of life didn't make him any more attractive than an overfed blasted skrewt. If the Slytherin's ego was large enough to believe Harry would lie with him, the mindless creature had to think again.

"Your vernacular of insults is as limited as the number of your brain cells," Harry replied coolly, not looking up from a fragile ancient tome on battle magic. The name-calling used to hurt him, but not anymore. Out of the corners of his eyes, Harry watched Goyle dumbly open his mouth and process the information in his mind.

_Huh, I doubt he will make it before dinner._ Harry flipped the page, returning his attention to the fascinating book. _If I believed in Goyle's brains, I might as well have believed that the Deathly Hallows are not a children's tale, and immortality exists._

"It's time to go, guys," Draco Malfoy announced from his position at the mirror. The blond was fixing his green and silver tie, a cool and pleasant expression on his face. Turning his head to the sides, Malfoy checked for everything to be perfect. The blond was always a stickler for spending a hellish amount of time in front of the mirror.

"But shouldn't we put the mudblood on place?" Goyle ground out. Harry only rolled his eyes and flicked another page.

_How boring. In seven years, one would think they could change the repertoire of questions and morning rituals._

"And be late?" Malfoy curled his lip and finally turned away from the mirror, directing his attention onto the lowly mortals. His hair was as blond as ever and height – here Harry narrowed his eyes in envy – as ridiculously tall as it had been the day before, the previous time in front of the mirror. Obviously, nothing drastic had changed in his body overnight, and the blond was happy.

Sometimes, Harry wished to join the Weasley twins and play a prank on the haughty pureblood heir.

Alas, with them being Gryffindors, it wasn't easy. His every gesture and wrong word would be analysed by the House of Lions. Not in his favour.

_Their loss, then, isn't it?_ Harry thought as Malfoy passed him without a nod or a word of acknowledgement, his face a frozen aristocratic mask of politeness merged with the airs of superiority. _Typical. All purebloods are so charming. A bunch of rich toffs._

This time, however, something was different.

"We used to follow every word you said... But you're not so mighty anymore, are you, Malfoy?" Goyle bit out with a nasty smirk splitting the pudgy face in two, as his hand grabbed the quieter Crabbe before he could step up to Malfoy and follow him like usual. "We all saw the lil' blood traitor wipe the floor with you."

Harry raised an eyebrow and propped back on his elbows to observe the confrontation through half-lidded eyes. Malfoy's goons abandoning him? Not that big a shock, if he thought about it. Goyle's confidence in himself had been steadily increasing, proportionally to the growth of his duelling abilities – the bloke's style was rubbish, if it existed at all, but by flinging around bursts of pure power he succeeded in disabling his adversaries. Or killing them. Mercy? Overrated by a mile.

Malfoy stiffened. Harry realised, with a sharp sparkle of vindictiveness and malicious glee, that the blond barely resisted slumping his shoulders and shrinking in on himself under the razors of Harry's, Crabbe's, and Goyle's gazes.

The Crucio from Harry's wand had not only pained Malfoy; it had obliterated all the vestiges of authority the teen had had with its purifying sinister glory, shedding light on all the weaknesses and faults of the pureblood, the ones previously hidden in the convenient darkness of the allure and wealth and prestige of the Malfoy name.

Ah, sweet, sweet revenge.

_You will live my life for a while, it seems, dear Draco. Blatant weakness, the kind you showed – in front of your beloved Dark Lord, no less! – is not tolerated in Slytherin. It is despised, resented, hated, and the person displaying it doesn't deserve so much as basic human mercy. The only thing we can do to the whelps who whine at every littlest sign of pain or a mere scrape, is to end their useless existence. Or make them top themselves. Not like someone would care, no?_

_Wasn't this what you told me after humiliating me in the middle of the meeting, all those years ago, after you had publicly hexed me? And you were all taunting me, not a hand outstretched to help?_

"I see you've got yourself a backbone, Goyle?" Malfoy hissed, albeit still stiffly, while his clenched fists trembled just enough for the human eye to see.

"Jus' realised we're not what people call us – your gu- gone- goons! Yeah, that's the word. We don't have tah be this anymore, now that you're not our leader." He thought – which looked like a damn hard piece of work, mind you – for a moment before pointing a fat finger at Harry. "Besides, I want him."

"Terribly sorry," Harry said with disgust lacing his voice and cracked a crooked grin. "I don't go around lying underneath some slabs of lard. My bones are too fragile to survive under all this weight. And it wouldn't be a blast explaining to Madame Pomphrey how I've got a fracture."

"You will not touch him," the blond demanded from his peer, grey eyes narrowed and his upper lip curled. Harry blinked after shooting him a wild-eyed look of disbelief. "_Imagining_ you in a sexual relationship gives me day-mares, and considering that the only place to snog here is the dormitory, I will not have you two copulating under my watch. Keep it in your pants until the holidays, at least."

_Ah, that's closer to the poncy arse I know._

"I don't have-"

"Your family are still subservient to mine," Malfoy interrupted. Harry could see snakes of frost slithering up the enchanted windows of the Slytherin dormitory. "Or have you conveniently forgotten this tidbit? I order, you obey. Simple, really – even for your debatable brains."

Goyle stood still for a minute, sorting out this information, a constipated frown of thinking process clear on his face. Finally, with a glower and a 'fuck you' in Malfoy's direction off he stormed, probably to drown his sorrows and grudges in pumpkin juice and to stuff his face with a mountain of banana cupcakes. His loyal, mindless friend Crabbe by his side all the time.

"Oh, what's that, Malfoy?" Harry quipped from his lazy lounge on the bed. His head tilted backwards. "Protecting me? How gallant."

Malfoy's body shook with fury, desperate rage, like a volcano before bursting with lava. When his head rose, his eyes gleamed with steel, and it was the most arousing look Harry had ever seen of him.

"How dare he!" the blond hollered. Harry winced from the sound. "After all I've done for him, all the chatting-up and butt-licking of professors so they would give him a passing mark-" His voice dramatically lowered. "After all we have been through together, all the moments we have shared..."

"Never thought you were so attached to those two laddish brutes," Harry remarked. He stood up and stretched, not noticing Malfoy's quick glance at his graceful arch of the body, akin to that of a cat's.

"A Malfoy must never walk alone," Malfoy griped, his knuckles whitening. "Father says it is undignified and shows one's decline in influence. There should always be someone on the flank to show that subservience to one of ours is something to be proud of." The haughty tone he had assumed, the one that told of lofty world of nobility and political prowess, evaporated when Malfoy added in a normal, if waspish, voice, "Besides, it is plain embarrassing. I would feel like a social washout going somewhere alone."

Harry chortled at that, picking up his school bag from the floor and adjusting the strap on his shoulder.

"It seems the Malfoys are out of fashion now. You'll get used to it, oh the walking pinnacle of dignity and pride."

"Of course." Malfoy's glacial eyes could freeze water, but not Harry as he gritted out, "Blood traitor must be acquainted with this kind of treatment."

"Intimately. And whose fault is that?" Harry gibed without real malice in his voice. He loathed Malfoy for the cruelty the blond had saturated Harry's childhood with, drowning it suffering, but sometimes the blue-eyed teen's remark entertained him, too, and on those days he would feel lenient and wouldn't retort with one of his small but oh so satisfying _revenges_.

He suppressed the urge to cackle. If they only knew. A Marauder's legacy doesn't die just so, not even in a jungle of bullying and endless, tiring struggles with it.

"But _I_ am NOT!" the blond nearly shouted the last part. Frustration was rolling off him like an avalanche, accumulated since that night in the ballroom and only increased with the incessant jibes from the Hogwarts population and the proper pureblood community. A public humiliation wasn't forgotten easily, not in the days they lived in.

Harry casually surveyed Malfoy from the corner of his eye for several seconds, unmoving but relaxed, before shrugging.

"Anyway, our illustrious local pureblood wonder, you may walk with me to the Great Hall if a few corridors alone are too big a scare for you." _The reactions will be fun to see. I'll even endure your presence for that. _

Malfoy sneered and an expression as if he had just consumed a barrel of sourest lemons possible overtook his face, twisting it into a grimace of utter disgust and horror. "And that helps my situation so much, Potter. People will _flock_ to me with admiration for parading around with a blood traitor hanging off my arm."

"Suit yourself," Harry threw nonchalantly, not really caring. His pleasant moments aside, Malfoy irked him, most of the time. Almost all the time. Always.

Befriending the blond had been Harry's most coveted and secret dream in Harry's childhood, a zealously guarded wish he had never revealed to any living soul for fear of a landslide of criticism and onslaught of hatred, just like he had never let on that the general derision toppling him, a mere child of nine, had hurt him for all the po-faced facade he maintained. Well, the idiocies of the youth.

Thankfully, the fallacy of finding a friend in a Malfoy had abandoned him long ago. Harry had never asked it back.

Just as his polished shoe crossed the threshold, a loud outcry interrupted his musings with its panicky feel and urgency, and not a moment later a set of school robes rustling alerted Harry of a person scampering to join him.

_Not so high an' mighty now, are we?_

"Changed your mind?" Harry didn't bother keeping the smug undertones out of his question. Malfoy's furious gaze burned.

"As if!" the blond squeaked indignantly and rushed past Harry's form into the corridor that led to the common room. "The way to the Great Hall is the same for all of us, imagine that."

Harry's lips hitched upwards as he lazily followed the other teen, and the glee shimmering in his eyes didn't wane even under the glowers that accosted the pair when they ambled through the common room, not even when at the Slytherin table Parkinson spat insults and wailed at her 'dear, darling Drakey-pooh's descent into 'blood-traitorishness' and loudly proclaimed him a threat to all things dignified and pureblood, while Malfoy was slowly withering and hunching in on himself, yet clinging to Harry's presence like an overly dependent puppy you wanted to kick but spared in the end.

Malfoy's banishment wouldn't last long, what's with that family's historical position amongst wizards, but a debt of honour – _that_ would. Oh, how fortunate it all was! Harry would help the boy, somewhat endear himself to him, maybe, protect him from bullies – and if those didn't show up, Harry could always use his dear Aunt's fortune and arrange some – all the while pretending to be besotted with Malfoy's favour and budding affection between them.

Yes, striking a 'friendship' with the Malfoy heir would benefit him.

And please Harry all the more when the time would come to show the blond how much he actually loathed him – after the sod had formed an attachment, of course. And after Harry had killed the leader of the Dark.

_Life is looking up._

* * *

Harry's target was sitting at one of the numerous rosewood tables of the library, proper and composed, not a brown hair out of the usual bird's nest she sported, not a wrinkle on her fine Ravenclaw robes. Perfect. Harry licked his lips.

Summoning his usual confidence and a guileless expression on his face, Harry strode to the girl he wanted to 'befriend'.

"You are Hermione Granger, right?"

The smile on Harry's face screamed 'fake' but was so utterly convincing that when the girl looked up in confusion only for her cheeks to redden, he just ticked the mental list. And here he had hoped things would be different with her...

Despite this, when her eyes immediately sharpened a moment later, this sparkle of infatuation snuffed out of existence and hastily forgotten, when she straightened out and surreptitiously covered the titles of the books scattered across the table with a great piece of parchment, when she replied with a charming smile of her own, Harry confirmed that the rumours didn't lie and indeed Hermione Granger was a capable witch not only in the book department.

Then again, there usually was much more truth to rumours than people liked to believe.

"Harry Potter, right?" the girl retorted without motioning him to sit down and join her. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion at his abrupt attempt to talk to her out of his own volition after so many years of maintaining a level of cool respect between them, no warm feelings seeping in. Obviously, she sensed something dodgy about it. Clever girl.

Harry covered a smirk by an embarrassed cough.

But not clever enough.

"I know we've never really talked before and all..." he began in a soft voice, conveying awkwardness with his inept shuffles and a shy quirk of lips. This part was important. He had to play it right. "Still, I thought I'd ask you- I mean, you really are the best person for this, I think, so-"

Hermione's eyes softened by a margin and when she spoke, there was no real bite. "How about getting to the point? I still have an essay to do – the laws of permanent transfiguration of body parts can wait, but Professor McGonagall won't."

Harry made his eyes brighten and face light up as he nodded enthusiastically and pulled a chair to plop down with a loud sound.

"Exactly!" he exclaimed and shot a charming grin at Hermione. His snort reverberated across his mental walls. "This is what I want to talk to you about."

"The laws of permanent transfiguration?" Hermione raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Brown eyes now glazed with wariness, she probed, "Um... Sorry to tell you, of course, but at the rate you are going now, Potter, don't you think it might be over the top?"

Line, hook, and sinker. Harry loved his mask of a witless dueller; it left so much room for improvisation.

"Exactly," he repeated and leaned over the table, grasping one of her smooth, dainty hands in his own, and continued with a plaintive sigh. "I want you to tutor me."

At first, she stared. Then, she let out a chuckle of merry laughter, which erased the tension in her lips and forehead, and it struck Harry that this was the only time he had ever seen her so full of mirth and without a disapproving frown or scowl.

"I don't do any tutoring," she finally said after calming down, looking surprised at her outburst and pointedly staring at her quill instead of Harry, unwilling to acknowledge that he had made her laugh. _And is it regret I see here? _"I'm sorry. You just have to find someone else. I think Padma or Terry or Su would love to teach you, you know."

Harry shook his head with vigour, appearing frantic, although inside he was drifting in a sea of calmness. She would agree. Simply because Dumbledore wouldn't give her any other choice: according to the teen's suspicion – and those, modesty aside, usually proved to be true – she was one of the Order's spies, and the man would never let an opportunity to have Harry on his side slip. Just like the Dark Lord, Harry was sure, would make his move soon and secure Harry's subservience.

It felt wonderful to be the tool everyone fought so fiercely to have on their side, in their misguided superiority forgetting that Harry had his own agenda and had smarts and abilities to counteract whatever manipulation they threw at him.

Just like he was doing now.

"You don't understand," Harry said in a soft, hollow voice. His beautiful face scrunched up in a grimace of misery and beseech. Hermione reached to squeeze his hand, her own eyes bleeding with confusion and an undercurrent of eager anticipation – she didn't get to hear other's secrets often, and another bit of knowledge always came in handy. "No one really does. It's not Transfiguration itself that bothers me. No, not quite. I could be a total dunce in it like Crabbe, and I wouldn't care, but I have someone who does..." he trailed off suggestively.

Hermione's puzzlement was palpable until it hit her and she gasped, covering her mouth with a hand, her pretty brown eyes wide with-

Was it fear? Concern? For _him_? Harry gritted his teeth to keep himself from an incredulous snort, his mind as if blocked, hindered from the onslaught of warm feeling threatening to churn in his chest.

It was just a game. She was just a pawn. Nothing more. There would be no real feelings of affection and companionship between them, simply because that desire remained one more prisoner in the confines of Harry's jarring childhood, that imaginary jail filled with the broken bits of all his wishes and aspirations, the ones he had locked up and forgotten in his bid for revenge.

Vengeance was everything for him now, the very keystone of his way of life. Without it, he would simply crumble under the negativity, pain, suffering, denial, disappointment, cruelty which were like the bricks of his existence.

_Not vengeance,_ Harry corrected himself mildly. _Justice. Voldemort will receive his due, and I'm sure people will only thank me for that later, despite the sacrifices they will have to make. What's that saying Grindelwald's so famous for? Ah, yeah. 'For the Greater Good', it all is._

"Bellatrix Lestrange," Hermione snapped him out of his musings, apprehension growing on her thin face as she cocked her head and stared. "Your adoptive... mother."

"Not _mother_!" Harry snapped and thumped his fist on the table, furious. Seeing Hermione flinch and inhale, hearing the smack echo in the library, which drew negative attention from their resident librarian, brought him back to the situation he was in. He reassured Hermione with a twitchy grin and a wave of his hand. Perhaps he could use it, after all. His next words were a whisper. "She's not my mother-"

"I'm so sorry," Hermione cut in and reached to trace a finger down his cheek. "Oh, Harry – I'll call you Harry, all right? – it was so stupid, so insensitive of me- I should have realised you are still sore after your parents' death and it's inconsiderate of me-"

Harry held up a hand to stop her and surreptitiously moved away from her fingers. He didn't like people touching him. Usually, it meant only pain or trouble.

"You are right, it's inconsiderate." He blathered on before she could utter a word. "Still, Bellatrix is not my mother but she is my guardian and holds a lot of control over me and my life. You can't imagine the nasty things she can do..." The shudder he did not have to fake.

"And of course she needs you to have great marks," Hermione finished for him, at which Harry nodded with a grateful smile.

_Finally, we are going somewhere._

"Yes. Transfiguration included. And you are the best in the subject."

Hermione nibbled on her bottom lip and fiddled with her fingers, still uncertain. She probably hadn't yet received any missive from Dumbledore explaining Harry's potential affiliations, and so was now swinging back and forth between duty and compassion like a pendulum, pitying Harry and wanting to help him, but unsure how her leader would take her gallivanting around with the ward of the notorious Dark witch.

Well, there was always the tiny chance she wasn't one of the spies in Hogwarts at all, but the probability was so slim it was laughable. Harry couldn't be mistaken here.

_So, I just need to prompt her a bit. Easy, really._

"You have some trouble with Duelling, right?" Harry questioned innocently and grinned at her affronted scowl as she drew back and huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. So easy to rile up. That might be a disadvantage in the future. He needed his 'link' to be calmer. Well, they would work on it, if time afforded.

"I do NOT!" she hissed like the Dark Lord's snake that visited Lestrange Manor all year round, carrying messages from her master. "I am doing wonderfully, thank you very much! My marks are perfectly above adequate and our professor never complains and- Honestly, Harry Potter, what gave you the idea?"

"Maybe these?" Harry lifted the parchment spread on the table and revealed the dusty tomes on the art of duelling, battle spells, and defensive shields. He tapped his chin in mock contemplation. "Hmm... What might they be, I wonder? After all, you so clearly expressed you have no need for additional research on duelling, huh?"

"There is no limit to perfection," Hermione insisted, once again looking anywhere but him. The obviousness annoyed Harry.

_How am I supposed to use the blasted girl if she can't mask her bloody feelings if her life depended on it? And it will. Of course it will, with what I've planned for her._

"This might be the truth," Harry drawled calmly and waited until she relaxed. "But you don't even hit the mark of 'really good', Gran- Hermione. Sorry to burst you bubble."

"Now you are behaving exactly like I would expect you to after hearing the rumours," Hermione hissed. Even her hair seemed to acquire a life on its own and Harry wouldn't be surprised to see it morph into snakes and parrot their mistress. "Arrogant, haughty, self-important-"

"Self-assured, and nothing of what I've said to you has been a lie," he snapped before regaining his control and schooling his features in that softness and vulnerability people like Hermione adored and swooned over. "I _need_ to better my Transfiguration, Hermione. The awful things she will do to me if I don't... Please, you must help me."

Harry summoned a pathetic, pitiful expression he would never otherwise wear on his face and peered at her through his thick eyelashes. Victory flooded him when determination was slowly eating away at the hesitance on her face. Just a little push.

"Do you want me to tell you how much she hurt me?" he addressed her. In a flurry of black robes with silver and green trimmings, and a ponytail of black hair, he latched onto her arm – he didn't mind the contact when he initiated it – and clutched it tight. "This is important, Hermione. I know you have plenty of twits crowding you all the time and pestering you with all those half-arsed excuses why you must do their work for them, but with me only two hours a week will be enough."

_Enough to influence you and turn you to my side, because I'm here and Dumbledore is not, and you want recognition, which I will give you after killing the Dark Lord. After all, I've got no intention of dying after that. And survival isn't guaranteed if you are hunted by sycophantic worshippers bent on revenge._

_So, my dear, when I'm through with him, the title of his defeater is all yours._

"All right," Hermione finally relented, her sharp mind drowsy with sympathy Harry professionally invoked in her. Abruptly, she raised her chin high and puffed out her chest. "And there is no need for duelling lessons, Po- Harry. I am perfectly well studying by myself."

"You need them," Harry insisted. Having her as his ally and then let her die would be bothersome. Finding another strong-willed puppet would be a back-breaking chore, and Harry would rather spare himself that. "'Perfectly above average' doesn't mean much when half the class are doing superb, and the professor never complains only because you are a muggleborn, and so he doesn't give a damn."

"Are you a blood purist?" Hermione demanded sharply, her eyes narrowed.

_Oh no, my dear, we are not diverging from the topic._

"It'd be hypocritical of me to be," Harry placated her with a patient countenance and inclined his head, making raven-black hair fall on his eye. "Blood traitor, remember? Besides, my mother was a muggle. It would be disrespectful to all my memories of her to disparage this heritage."

"Oh." She looked properly chastised, deflated. "Today is a strange day. I have never behaved so inconsiderate before to the same person – and all in the span of an hour, no less!"

Harry shrugged and allowed a small smile to dance on his lips. "Even geniuses are allowed a day off from being so composed. It happens. Anyway, my aid will be necessary to you."

At her protests, he threw her an exasperated glance.

"You are barely keeping up, Hermione," he reproved her mildly and smirked. "I, on the hand, am the best damn duellist in this entire school. If anything can help you, it's me. Not least because initially I had problems with this subject."

"You did?"

"Yeah." Harry nodded and noticed how enraptured Hermione became, the way she bent forward in interest, eager to hear how he had acquired his current skill. "Believe it or not, I couldn't cast a Stupefy without it backfiring." A chuckle bubbled out of his throat before he swallowed to cut it off and pierced Hermione with a freezing stare. "And then I realised I needed it. I needed to become stronger. Needed to be able to fight, if only to put up a good fight with Malfoy and his posse. And they are nagging you, too, right?"

Hermione slowly tilted her head in agreement, and her eyes gleamed, and Harry knew he had her.

"I know that many of them underwent some training in summer, since we're now expected to take our duties as Death Eaters seriously." He refused to think of the cursed mark on his forearm. It was too much. "They are no match for me, but they'll wipe the floor with you-"

"Always so full of yourself, Potter!" a familiar voice butted in, and even before turning his head, Harry mentally sighed. Really, what was he expecting? Where Hermione was, Ron Weasley always stalked.

"Is there a course of some sort for timing your dramatic entrances like you do?" Harry asked coolly without deigning to snap his head to look at the newcomer.

Weasley ignored him. Weird, that. Usually the redhead blistered and snarled and yelled and-

Oh, of course. Hermione Granger was there.

"Hey, Hermione, are you okay?" The gangly teen walked up to the Ravenclaw and started checking – more like 'feeling up' – her for injuries before she went red and shook his hands off herself, shoving him away. Weasley's freckled face crumpled in hurt and Harry realised with dread that this was akin to an episode from a family drama. "You didn't have to push me this hard! I was only trying to make sure you're okay after-"

"Yes, Ronald Weasley, I'm perfectly good after spending an hour _having a pleasant talk_, imagine that! But I will not be so good if you don't make yourself scarce this very moment! Please. Before I do something... unfortunate."

"I- I just-" Weasley stammered, red splotches on his face, and lifted both of his hands to shield himself from the girl's fury. "I didn't know! I mean, he's a Slytherin and all, so-"

"If your sight is usually failing you so badly as your brain," Harry drawled with a pleasant smile on his face, standing up, "I can tell you that half the students are Slytherins. It's pretty prestigious, you know, with the Dark Lord being one."

The redhead's expression contorted into rage as he spat, "A slimeball like you would know. After all, sucking up is the only way to be a squad leader with your dubious smarts and abilities."

"Squad leader?" A frown creased Harry's forehead and he refused to believe what had to be unmistakeable, yet so very mind-boggling that there was a dam on his comprehensive ability. "What are you yapping about, Weasley?"

With a nasty grin, the taller teen mocked, "What, your secret is out now? Afraid that everybody's gonna know that you're some upstart git's lapdog now, 'cause this is the only way for you to have this position when they denied it to me, though I'm so much stronger than you and-"

"Weasley!" Harry's sharp shout cut through the rant and severed it like it would a thin thread. The mentioned teen cringed and shivered under the suddenly astute and intense pair of bright green eyes, which bore into him with a frightening amount of malicious force. Harry stood up and raised his chin, demanding, "Explain right now!"

"You are a slime bucket," Weasley gritted out and marched up to Harry in all his scruffy glory. Yet, he stopped just the right respectful step away, wary of what Harry's shark-like smile might mean. You can't drown a self-preservation instinct completely, after all. "That's all there is to know."

"Do you perhaps have a masochistic streak of sorts?" Harry asked incredulously and closed that distance between them to grab the Gryffindor red and gold tie and pull it, ignoring Hermione's gasp behind the redhead. Despite possessing a smaller frame, Harry displayed clearly who was in control here. A spell buzzed just beneath his fingertips, ready to shoot off on his command, and Weasley's scared face spurred him on, and their magic clashed and overlapped them, and filled Harry with delightful energy, the same as the one he felt during a duel.

And it was exhilarating. To have this control. Knowing, that a mere pull of will – and Harry's magic would incinerate the boy, being too strong to submit to any other's.

"Headmaster Dolohov asked me to pass on a message to you."

"I'm waiting. And Mordred forbid you make me wait a minute more. Not all people have the time to dally here, so chop chop."

The abhorrence on Weasley's face? Just precious.

"Fine. You're to meet Dolohov tomorrow at six-something to discuss your placement as a squad leader. Apparently, they're granting you the title 'cause you're so magically powerful or whatever. You'll speak to him. Now, release me!"

Harry complied, his mind still locked on the fact that he had unwittingly snatched the position many coveted, and patted Weasley's cheek.

"Not so hard, was it? If you behave, with time you'll realise that playing a good boy will get you much farther with me than acting so annoyingly tough all the time. It's stupid. You should've simply told me the information sooner and trotted off to whatever brooding lair you have."

"Harry!" Hermione berated with an irritated scowl.

"Well, off I go!" Harry flashed her a smile which was marginally warmer than his usual fakes. "Cheers and I'll find you somehow to discuss when and where we're going to meet."

"Hermione! You can't! I- I won't let you go with him wherever he wants you to, 'cause, you know, he'll lure you in, trick you, and do something- something bad or worse, and-"

Harry didn't stick around to hear what the rest of the rant was about, busy as he was. And this animosity wasn't novel to him.

Apparently, the fact that Harry didn't struggle every day against the unfairness of blood purists and the Dark Lord's reign in general was a dark mark against him in Ron Weasley's book.

Harry could certainly live with that.

And Hermione...

Initially, he had been hesitant to approach her, even as he had contemplated the idea in the stern darkness of Lestrange Manor, lying in his bed, exhausted, feeling as if he had passed through a colander, but in reality had merely endured another perilous bit of training with Rodolphus.

Yet, she was the most probable candidate for the role of the Order's spy.

It couldn't be anyone on the staff – that much was sure. Oh, Harry was so certain not because of some misguided faith he had in McGonagall, Flitwick, Babbing, and some others, not to mention that's he could always whiff something fishy about Snape. Harry wasn't daft, and, sadly, neither was Voldemort.

The Dark Lord didn't want to lose capable teachers, because those were hard to come by, so he had simply tweaked the dark marks of all former or suspected members of the Resistance movement so that they were now physically unable to betray them.

Harry heard that some chit had tried it. She had been so happy after relaying a piece of information to her allies. Right up until she exploded and her entrails hung all over her husband.

So, students were left.

Purebloods and, for the most part, halfboolds were bloody happy under Voldemort's rule, so that left him contemplating mudbloods and blood traitors like himself, and Harry knew the signs of wavering loyalty to the Dark when he saw it.

Hermione Granger was perfect spy-material. She was intelligent, albeit not very covert while lying, seemingly rule-abiding – she hadn't lost a point in all her Hogwarts years – and meek, and also appeared resigned to her station in the world, even though most other mudbloods waged attempted wars on Hogwarts staff and students, trying to return the course of things to the pre-Voldemort's days.

While people like Ron Weasley and Seamus Finnigan and Justin Finch-Fletchley ran around the castle like headless chicken in hopes of causing some ruckus here and there, pointlessly battling against the system, she sat back and observed and memorised. Much like Harry.

And if Harry could see the benefits of the girl, so would Dumbledore.

And, probably, Voldemort, which was why Harry hadn't outright stated his sudden burning love for the Light and a desire to jump sides. The Dark Lord had eyes everywhere.

Making Harry all the more excited to wriggle out of those traps and accomplish his mission.

He preferred thinking about his goals and successes instead of nightmares and what being a Death Eater comprised.

* * *

No matter how much Harry scrubbed, it would not go away.

The droplets of water beat down his body in an endless stream as he stood under the shower, tense, shoulders trembling, and kept on rubbing his arm, that place previously unmarred but now tainted with the image of a skull and a snake. The skull's open jaws eerily resembled a mocking smile.

He had that horrifying claim forever etched onto his skin, a symbol of his subservience, the one that wouldn't go away even long after Voldemort's death – always there, always a reminder.

Still, so many people _wanted _to carry that claim... Harry remembered Malfoy's vain pride, and Nott's quiet anticipation, and Zabini's shiver of excitement... And those were all his housemates! Voldemort-besotted people were many, all across the country and going far beyond it.

Very often, when he was afraid to dream his nightly horrors, unwilling to plunge in the darkness of his memories, Harry lay at night thinking what made people cater to the whim of a deranged psychopath, because surely that was all Voldemort had ever been – a batty delusional loon with an illusion that he was destined to have the world.

And yet...

Harry remembered the man's charisma, remembered the pull he had felt to him despite the loathing, remembered the seductive whispers and surprisingly pleasant voice-

If he hadn't been the one to order his parents' deaths, would Harry be just one more member of the world-wide fan club?

The idea frightened him. Mostly because of its high probability.

_But he did order it,_ Harry told himself firmly. _And without a strong reason, too. If my parents did something truly nefarious, then yes, I would forgive him because that would be him acting for the country's benefit. But they didn't. _

His path was set. For the rest of the evening, Harry chided himself for ever doubting it and succumbing to Voldemort's dubious charms.

* * *

**Next Chapter**: What being a squad leader means, a _very_ long Tom/Harry part, and some duelling action! Also, from the next chapter the pace will be picking up, and there will considerably be more action and interactions with the Light side.

Another thing I wanted to ask you... Do you guys want me to put the dates here? Usually, I don't really give a damn about them unless a story jumps a bunch of months every other chapter, but just yesterday I stumbled across a profile where a person ranted about the importance of dates. So, do I need to put them in here?


	5. Chapter 5 Dance with Me, I Need It

Thanks for all of your encouraging reviews! I will reply to them in a couple of hours, just after I'm though with cooking dinner. You guys are awesome and really make my busy days, so I can't even express how much I adore you all!

As promised, this chapter contains a _big_ Tom/Harry part. Also, while this is not the first battle scene I've ever written, it's the first battle scene I've ever posted, so I hope it's not too disappointing.

* * *

**Chapter 5. Dance with Me, I Need It.**

* * *

_September, 7th_

Antonin Dolohov was someone with rotting teeth (where they existed at all), typical wizarding dress sense (read: lack of it), and an affinity for annoying, long-winded, preaching speeches (when you got him talking at all; usually the man used simple trollish grunts to communicate).

Oh, and, coincidentally, he was the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

In retrospect, Harry could understand why Voldemort had appointed him this honourable position. _Exactly_ for his flaws, for his slaverish subservience and grovelling and hatred of all things not Dark-Lord-worshipful, because those enabled a complete control over Hogwarts for the Dark Lord, seeing that even Snape, bound by the dark mark as he was, could weasel out of some less pleasant school decisions or let slip information on wards or other defences.

A reverential marionette, on the other hand?

"You wanted to see me, Headmaster?" Harry asked in a neutral drawl

"Believe meh, Potter, I would've gone perfectly without," Dolohov groused out with a sneer. His disgust was tangible in the dimly lit office littered with magical equipment like Sneakoscopes and foe-mirrors and the like. No book in sight – but that was to be expected.

Dolohov's narrow mildew eyes zeroed in on Harry as he continued in the same rough tone that belied his unwillingness to speak, "Weasley must've told yeh already, no? Congratulations and all that rot; you're promoted tah a squad leader."

Harry advanced further into the room, from the corner of his eye catching sight of a few portraits leaning over in interest, as if escaping the confining frames in order to observe him, all the while accompanied by soft murmurs which were of no greater volume than quiet whispers of tree crones in autumn.

"Why? What about Malfoy or Nott? They're both superb in their studies, amongst the first in our year. I imagined they would be given this privilege."

Mostly because professors favour them, Harry wanted to spitefully add, but that was a lie: as no good as their personalities were, both chaps duelled like pros and kept up with other coursework – a fact that Harry's public persona couldn't boast of.

Of course, there was more than one squad leader in a year, but rarely more than two in a House, so for him to get the position...

Dolohov let out a long-suffering sigh that spoke of long years of enduring misery in his time as the headmaster, and his face soured.

"Whatcha know of squads, Potter?"

"There are usually five or six of them in a year," Harry replied immediately as he plopped down on a hard-backed spindly chair that looked almost like a spider on its thin legs. He was in for a long illuminating teaching session, it seemed. Trust Dolohov to be a brute about it and forego offering a seat. "Each comprises 'round six-seven persons including a squad leader and an instructor. The instructor is a Death Eater out of Hogwarts, usually somewhere in the mid-tier, sometimes, if a squad is pathetic, from the lower ranks, but never from the Inner Circle."

While for a couple of years the squads retained their original members, later they would either drop dead on a mission or get fatally injured or maimed to the point of utter uselessness, and then the structure of the squad would be changing, rarely with new persons added but often decreasing in size until diminishing to the point of duos and trios, at times even solos.

"Yeah, that's one way tah phrase it." Dolohov nodded with a rare spark of approval lifting one corner of his lips. "And who, yeh think, 's in charge'v appointin' the leaders n'instructors?"

Harry scoffed at the silly question – who did the man take him for? – before it hit him and he exhaled.

"The Dark Lord."

Stupid. Of course Dolohov would be as puzzled as Harry in this case. Everyone trusted Voldemort's judgement implicitly, and to them Harry's appointment meant that something was afoot there, maybe a brilliant scheme to reveal the blood traitor's dastardly traitorous plot, or maybe that there Harry's backside hid more secrets and his existence was more enigmatic than people imagined.

Well, if shove came to push and his real nature was discovered, Harry would use that, too.

"That's it, Potter." Dolohov sent him a crooked grin that morphed into a sneer a second later. "If it were meh, I'd never _thought _of allowin' yeh anywhere near power, but the Dark Lord sees somethin' in yah... Dontcha dare disappoint him," he boomed in the end, to which Harry replied with a countenance as indifferent as tides of time.

"I live to serve him." The lie rolled easily off his tongue, pushed by the eternity of practice in shrugging off the words and orders that rankled him. "Who are the members and the instructor? And what about missions? Are you going to give them to me- us?"

Dolohov chuckled darkly, and Harry resisted the urge to clobber the man. Despite the facade he maintained daily, he didn't like people laughing at him. Reminded him too much of his pathetic childhood, you see.

"That's the fun part, Potter, yeh see?" His eyes stabbed into Harry's. "The Dark Lord wishes yeh tah come tah 'im today at- was it eight? Anyway, the slip's yours in case someone's gonna catch yeh roaming the halls at night."

Harry swallowed. Again and again.

No. That couldn't happen. Not at all. Harry wouldn't allow it!

The Dark Lord had been haunting his mind and memories for days now, ever since that night, and Harry refused to worsen this- dare he say it? Obsession with his parents' murderer. His panic clasped his heart with a greying hand and clawed at his throat when he attempted to utter his protests, stumbling through the words.

Let them think he was afraid of the Dark Lord. They wouldn't know the real reason.

"No 'buts'," Dolohov snapped and allowed his magical aura spread around him in a mantle of fury. "That's an order."

* * *

_10:00 p.m._

The halls of Slytherin Manor were just as cold, unfriendly, dark, and threatening as Harry remembered them being.

His soft footsteps weren't muffled by the thin Persian carpets covering the black marble that radiated magic. The manor was a living entity almost – like Hogwarts, enticing, with its walls and floors and doors and furniture, every last item of it, radiating power that _shifted_ at his approach. It was wary of him, but at the same time strangely giddy, as if its expectance of him overrode whatever sense the entity held.

And yet, the greater power sung ahead.

It was a beacon, a sweet siren's song as hauntingly beautiful as seas and oceans, and as potentially wrecking as maelstroms. For now, the allure was the guiding force, and the actual danger was hiding a touch under the surface, in a passive wait for a victim to drift into it before engulfing the unfortunate soul.

Harry felt every bit that victim as the foreign but so familiar magic led him further into the lair, past Greek-styled statues and tapestries with naiads, past warded cherry wood tallboys and marble busts, past heavy velvet drapes and mysterious doors with who-knew-what lurking behind...

Harry didn't like it.

This was supposed to be the Dark Lord's lair, and yet the lack of attributes associated with this title inspired a sense of doubt and uncertainty.

Where was the blood streaming down the walls in steady waterfalls? The mountains of skulls decorating the throne room? The walls of bones akin to those in the ossuary of the catacombes of Paris?

Albeit, remarkably, there were no portraits.

Harry had noticed it even the last time he had visited the place, on that dreadful night when his hand had acquired an ugly claim and his life had been submitted to a monster. Portraits were two-way. True, for spying on unwitting wizards and beings, a portrait could do, but if the being in question possessed more intellect than an average dullard, that person would perceive the presence in a matter of seconds and burst the daring piece of portrait into flames. The usefulness in that? None.

And the bits of souls stuck in portraits could move from one frame to another effortlessly, with enough cunning and craftiness – even from the citadel of Light to the citadel of Dark.

Of course, it wasn't _that _easy, and they would need to know the spell Harry had invented exactly for that purpose, and there were a few limitations...

Still. Harry wondered to which side he would trade that secret. It could be a stalking-horse in the end, distracting either Voldemort or Dumbledore from other hush-hush activities and inventions and discoveries of his.

The siren-like allure crescendoed. Harry's heels clanked together as he stopped in front of a door that look as inconspicuous as any – plain, without any ornaments, surprisingly devoid of fancy wood or gold plates with inscriptions like _Beware of an angry Dark Lord_ or other swanky decorations. So, the man had _some_ modesty and style, it seemed.

_If I can get Draco Malfoy to give me a rant without a single insult, surely I can do this, too._

Harry drew in a deep breath, knocked at the door, grasped the doorknob and entered, without waiting for a reply.

"Good afternoon, my Lord," he murmured with his eyes closed before the door clicked close and he opened them.

Virescent clashed with claret.

"Fashionably late, right, Mr. Potter?" The man was amused, Harry noticed furiously, amused and with a tight-lipped smile forming the words into a purr.

Harry forced his stiff form into relaxation, remembered his mother's handy advice, remembered his mask, adjusted his stony expression into a charming smile with inlay of cheek seeping through, and gritted out the reply, as fake as Harry's entire persona was.

"I was held off."

A small deception, just one of many. Harry had dreaded the face-off and simply hidden away until the boundaries of propriety were not only stretched but had combusted. Two hours of delay.

The Dark Lord tsked. Mocking. Taunting. _Knowing_.

"By a childish fit of stubbornness, I presume? Truly, Mr. Potter, I admit to being disappointed that after all those years you still haven't figured out that I know everything about my loyal subjects." Voldemort particularly stressed the word 'loyal'.

Harry couldn't contain a shudder of discontentment that rushed through him. Know everything? Impossible. Couldn't be. Harry covered his tracks well, with death and torture as his faithful assistants at his beck and call when needed, with no soul he entrusted any of his secrets, with no liabilities in the face of friends or family around to blabber out the data on him.

Harry's breath grew quicker. Voldemort's smirk was one of victory. The older man stood up, revealing his impressive height and strong built, and sauntered to one of the bookshelves lining the walls of the study. He didn't speak until his browsing fingers pulled out one of the books – a frangible tome of thin pages and worn edges and coming-off title Harry couldn't decipher from his still position at the door.

"Now, it is going to be a long talk. Fancy sitting down, Mr. Potter?"

"I'm comfortable like this," Harry lied. His eyes drilled into the infuriating man's back. "We can skip the niceties if you want to, my Lord. I'm not a pleasantries sort of person."

"Why, I have noticed. You certainly don't do that small talk thing," the Dark Lord mused calmly, and Harry continued to watch him with ever-growing wariness and anxiety. The man was placid. Too placid. Harry steeled himself for _Crucios_ to come. "Or are beating around the bush either." He flipped through the pages. "Still, I insist." Danger, danger, danger.

_Ah, and here it comes. Knew you'd be unable to keep a conversation going without cheery threats of violence breaking out and such. _

Harry's lips thinned with fury, but he complied. His eye spying around the office for a nice armchair to drop in, he realised it was the first time he had shifted his gaze away from the statuesque figure at the bookshelves, away from the source of all this power that echoed across the walls and crooned at him, almost in an arousing caress raising small hairs on the back of his neck and rendering him breathless.

Impermissible.

Harry flopped into a black armchair and gathered his scant magical barriers specifically designed to drive the influence of lords out. He had been training in it for the whole summer, but still the ejection of that pressure proved to be a challenge.

Harry set his jaw. He wasn't a stranger to challenges.

Cool determination clicked into place.

"Why me?"

"A loaded question." Pages continued their flickering. The Dark Lord didn't turn to look at him anymore, and Harry felt- what was that? A feeble twinge of dissatisfaction? Harry beat it down in a surge of wrath. "I believe you must know the answer already. If not, I am severely disappointed in your presumed deductive abilities. Come on, come on, I was sure I discerned some brain matter behind that pretty face of yours."

Harry bristled with resentment and humiliation, the flush on his cheeks a firebrick colour.

He was torn. On the one hand, he couldn't backchat the man too much, Mordred forbid it would bring even more of Voldemort's presence into his life (because not to sound conceited or anything, Harry knew he was a good conversationalist when didn't have to hide his true self, and pleasant company).

On the other hand... the pull was just too strong.

Harry analysed his options and came to a decision that even if he let a meagre touch of smarts resurface, it wouldn't totally destruct his persona. He would survive.

The Dark Lord, meanwhile, wasn't through with his speech.

"Well, if you are proving to be that incompetent, I will help you work it out. Start talking. I am looking forward to correct you."

_Tough chance. There won't be a single mistake for you to catch. I'm a master of my cloak-and-dagger craft, and I'm a master of conclusion. I'm well aware of what you need me for._

And he was. Had come to the conclusion in those two hours of self-concealment.

"In our last encounter you mentioned that you're keeping track on me because of my heritage," Harry began, crossing his legs in a graceful motion. "It'd be foolish of you to allow a potential threat like me gallivant around unsupervised- not that I'm a threat, of course."

Voldemort's lips quirked into a mocking smirk as he flicked another page of the book he was holding.

"A threat? I would be careful with your ego, child. No, at the moment you are nothing more than a mere nuisance."

Harry gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists. His nails scraped tender skin, drawing blood, and he applied all his restraint to maintain the wobbly half-smile on his face.

_You don't know me. It will be your mistake, I swear._

"Still," Harry insisted in a calmer tone that concealed the raging volcano inside, but just barely – a few disdainful words more, and the screen would be ripped apart. Harry could dance around anyone but _him_. "My actions could bring you problems had I been a traitor, so you follow my doing along with other wizards' in similar positions... And that's how you found out about my duelling capabilities and achievements."

Voldemort inclined his head and Harry chanced a glance into his eyes. Once again, the crimson captured him with its intensity and swirling magic, and Harry swallowed and turned away, glaring stubbornly into a coffee table.

He could feel a certain taunting gaze skewering the side of his face.

"You appointed me my position because of my power, obviously." _Because you want it to be yours. _"And because you wish to continue your rational monitoring." _More like stalking. Because you want to control me and never let me out of sight._

That was the easy part. Harry knew that wasn't all, because the Dark Lord was a tricky bastard and layered all his plans with hundreds of levels and strata, making the road to the heart of his schemes thorny and complex.

"Duel with me, child."

The demand was unexpected. Harry blanched and blinked.

"Excuse me, my Lord?"

The man slammed the book shut as pale lips spilled the mind-boggling words, "I want to test the extent of your esteemed abilities. In a duel, of course. There is no better way to weed out the trash than a good battle, although-" Voldemort's eyes travelled across Harry's form. "-I believe you have a great future ahead of you."

The Dark's Lord's predatory stalk as he advanced towards Harry reeked of veiled mysteries and plans. He outstretched a hand to help Harry out of the armchair, at which the teen ground his teeth so hard he thought he would reach the gums.

"Great future, indeed."

There was something in the phrase, in the way it was said. Harry narrowed his eyes, standing up without supporting himself on the offered appendage and shaking the hand off as covertly as he managed.

"Is there any other future under your rule?"

_Keep up the reverential tone,_ Harry reminded himself. _Don't slip. What are those moments of humiliation next to the grand revenge?_

The Dark Lord's lips hitched up.

"We do not duel here. The training room."

* * *

"I want you to unleash your powers, Mr. Potter. Every last bit of it. If I sense you are leaving even a drop inside, I will not hesitate to shorten the number of squad leaders my Death Eaters have."

The Dark Lord, tall and imposing and dressed into impeccable dark battle robes with runes etched at the hems, cut a picture of force to be reckoned with. His power lapped around them both, enveloping and caressing, its song as enticing as ever and luring Harry in to step closer, to embrace it and submit, to serve and to never let go-

He cut off this train of thought.

"Understood, my Lord." Harry bowed mock-reverentially. He could barely contain shudders of anticipation, the thrill of it all. He was going to duel with the Dark Lord! Perfect practice for the future.

The eagerness was a smothering cocoon that wrapped him up into its welcoming fold and blinded him to the worries outside of the austere, vast training room both males were standing face to face in.

Harry was powerful. It was a polished sort of power, like a gem he had been refining for years, ever since the goal had been set and determination kicked in. Nothing like Goyle's sheer but blind power bursts or Hermione mixing theory with practice and thus failing. Harry trained himself arduously, daily, without mercy to himself, until the grime of inexperience was gone and the gem shone in the raw darkness of most other wizards' inability.

Of course, he couldn't let out _everything _here, but...

"Good. _Avada Kedavra_!"

Harry dodged fast, throwing himself on the floor, as his eyes went wide. The Killing Curse! That, he wasn't prepared for.

A delighted laughter rang out in the room. Harry steeled himself.

Maybe he needed to revise his plan about not using all his storehouses of magic.

"Now, Mr. Potter, don't be under the fallacy that I have a preconceived notion of mercy. My warning stays true. I want to see all you have in store, and I do not take kindly to disappointment. _Crucio_."

Harry quickly conjured a wooden table that shattered when the red beam collided with it, using the time provided to stumble to his feet and gather his wits. The Dark Lord only tsked at the missed hit.

Harry raised his wand and shouted, "_Explosivae Catena_!"

A tiny fireball burst out from his wand, followed by a few others, all rushing at high speed at the Dark Lord, who stood bored in his wait. The man summoned a Protego shield with a few flicks of his wand, so when the tiny fireballs augmented and erupted, the ashes placidly dropped to the ground, forming a burnt circle around the man.

"Too slow, child." Voldemort clucked his tongue and threw a sequence of curses, starting from a simple _Stupefy _and ending with a _Crucio_ and a powerful Slashing Curse. By organising the chain in that way, he wearied down the opponent with having to dodge the easy curses first to then miss the ones that mattered. "I am disappointed. _Try_ to be challenging, at least."

After a shout of _Protego!_ to ward off all the curses but the Unforgivable, which he dodged by jumping to a side, Harry concentrated his magic on the remnants of the Explosive Chain – his favourite spell when dealing with a powerful opponent strong enough to raise a Shield Charm.

As a decoy, Harry tossed a couple of Bone-breaking Curses and a Blinding Hex, which his opponent easily repelled.

Voldemort wanted to show how mighty he was by standing in one place without moving? Well, his undoing.

The man's shield was down now, because keeping up a Protego required a lot of magical force, and most wizards preferred to keep it up only when there was imminent danger, which Harry certainly wasn't considered to be.

Harry chortled.

_I'll have to let out a bit more of my real power to crack through._

"I see no point to try harder when it's you who's failing all the challenges for now."

The ashes at the Dark Lord's feet arose and formed the fireball-like shapes again, exploding near the Dark Lord's face. Harry heard a gasp, did a quick mental victory dance, and yelled, "_Stupefy! Crucio!"_

The Dark Lord screamed and fell to the floor in a heap of shivers and pitiful whimpers, and Harry felt nothing but disgust mixed with satisfaction coursing through him. Harry summoned his magic to envelop the man like a shroud and smother him, not giving him a chance to retaliate and enforcing the Petrification Spell, and continued with his onslaught of dark curses and hexes.

When he was ready to triumph, a dark chuckle reverberated across the walls and Harry whipped his head around only to find a grin full of teeth, and brown hair, and gleaming read eyes that were a window to a chaos of passion.

"Failing challenges, you say?" Voldemort's velvety baritone drawled, ending with a chuckle. "Foolish child. Your addition to the traditional spell, I suppose? You just missed the fact that some curses enable wizards to exuviate like snakes, throwing away their old bodies to escape curses."

The odour of burnt flesh hit Harry's nostrils and he didn't have to sneak a glance behind him to envision smoke rising from the figure of the mock Dark Lord.

The alert he felt snapped into exhilaration.

None of the wand-waving twits at Hogwarts offered as much stimulation, demanded as much strain from him as that man.

"Are you depressed and lost in misery because your half-baked plan was thwarted, child?"

The Dark Lord stepped forward until he saw the smile slowly blossoming on Harry's lips.

"I'm happy," Harry found himself murmuring through a cloud of giddiness. "There's some spunk in your old bones, my Lord, which is more than I can say for half the population of your sect."

"You are so sure of yourself... You know, boy, from Greyback's memories I viewed, your father was just as sure before a claw went through his chest."

Rage. Burning, all-consuming rage.

_He dares! If he wants some hard play, hard play he'll get. Live to serve the Dark Lord, huh? _Harry released almost everything from the self-imposed confines on his magic.

The Dark Lord continued, a smirk still playing across his lips, those goading eyes still gleaming red, as if he didn't see what his words were doing to Harry. Or maybe he did see and desired it. Harry didn't care. He wanted the menace _gone_.

"Come to think of it, your mother was a proud woman, too. It seems to run in the blood. Do you know what she did before her death, Harry Potter? The wound she inflicted on the Wizarding World? Or do you keep the blinds on your eyes and refuse to research? Blaming my Death Eaters, blaming Bella, blaming _me-_"

Harry forced a smile to grace his face. His fingers twitched on his wand handle.

"I've never blamed you, my Lord." A lie. Just one of many. Harry would never get tired of telling them, as long as they were necessary. "But we're still in the middle of a duel, so you can't fault me for wishing to smash your face with curses, right?"

Without further ado, Harry attacked.

He gathered the magic shimmering beneath his skin and hurled it into the Dark Lord in an endless stream of sheer force that flooded his senses and swept through the training room like a purposeful tornado of sparkling colours – blues and blacks and purples and whites and reds. Harry hardly ever used his raw power even in a training, so he had trouble directing it correctly, but his anger didn't let the magic slip from its goal: to hurt a certain person.

Harry relished in this wild force. Up to the moment when another, darker, more experience and even more alluring power rose to the call of his adversary – and from then on, he was losing.

Harry gasped and stumbled back when foreign magic responded to his, and both blasts twined with each other, and bit and tore and strangled, while Harry felt such an onslaught of magic-induced emotions, all conflicting and sweeping him off his feet, that he froze and couldn't fight back.

When Harry raised his eyes to meet the Dark Lord's, with a fleeting expression of surprise he realised that the man was not angry that Harry had flung the stream of all his power at Voldemort. On the contrary, the older wizard looked content and smug, as if something had been proven to him.

Eyes narrowed, Harry clutched his wand and prepared a few curses at the tip of it and on his lips. He threw one, which the Dark Lord easily dodged, and in a whirlwind of motion his target wasn't there anymore, but oppressive hands surrounded him and warm breath caressed the top of his head. The voice that spoke was husky and winded.

"A useful tip, child: never neglect muggle fitness and martial arts. They may be just as deadly as the wizarding lore at times."

Harry calmed down, then smirked, stilling from his struggle in the Dark Lord's grasp.

"Who said I've neglected them?"

With those words, he summoned his strength into his fist, peppering it with some bits of magical power, and punched the smug face. Slipping out of the hold, Harry whirled around and grabbed strong shoulders to push the older wizard down to the floor.

Voldemort hissed as they tumbled to the floor: a single struggle of tugs and pulls and punches and kicks. Their wands lay half-forgotten inches away from the belligerent heap of bodies, but neither truly needed them, both using wandless magic and bursts of magic to empower physical blows and transform small scrapes from clawing at each other into bloody gashes.

Harry laughed and laughed, never having felt such exalting pleasure.

In the midst of their struggle both stilled and locked their gazes. Both males were breathless, with their hair tousled and eyes half-lidded from the pleasure and equally pleasurable pressure both derived from the duel. Voldemort's hand cupped Harry's chin and drew blood from the extensive scratches on the teen's face, while the younger wizard's hands were fisting the front of the Dark Lord's sweat-and-blood-drenched shirt.

Harry noticed with excitement the bruise forming on from his slaps and punches on the Dark Lord's face.

Then, from his position atop the man, Harry noticed that another kind of _excitement_ was growing in him, the same kind that he could feel radiate from Voldemort.

The Dark Lord smirked and clasped Harry's face tighter, leaning up to purr in his ear, to Harry's utmost mortification.

"You are full of surprises, child. Do the blood and pain spur you on? I can give you a _world_ of it if you only say so..." Voldemort bit down on Harry's earlobe, extracting a gasp out of the youth. Harry felt blood trickle down his neck before the Dark Lord licked it off in a sensual swirl of tongue. Arousal churned in him.

Greater, however, was the rage.

"And you, my Lord, sorry to say, are dreadfully boring and predictable," Harry hissed and roughly tugged the man's hair to shove the handsome face and sensuous tongue away.

Without wasting a heartbeat, Harry grabbed his wand and pushed himself to his feet, kicking off the man in the process. His eyes blazed green fire as he concentrated.

_The last bit of my power._

"You underestimate me, my Lord," Harry bit out. Everyone did. Life would show them that mistake.

While the Dark Lord gathered himself and his magic around him, grasping his wand, too, Harry closed his eyes and summoned what was left of his magic, which was, admittedly, no much: he had fed most of it to the earlier blast and the Shield Charms and the Explosive Chain.

With his wand, Harry slashed through the air in a quick pattern of a sequence of whirls. The spell was a lengthy one, and chances were he wouldn't be in time-

No matter. He had to _try_.

The wand motions ended just as the Dark Lord prepared to strike. Time to act, then.

"_Ignis Tempestas_!" Harry hollered with desperation gripping him. The fire spells were his specialty. No matter the level of his adversary, they always enabled him to win.

Not this time.

Initially a puff of smoke spilling from the tip of his wand, the fume ignited and tore through the air around him with its blazing filaments, creating a circle of flames around Harry's casting form, protecting him but at the same time expanding outwards to devour the expanses of the duelling room, including Harry's opponent.

He couldn't see through the screen of smoke and fire. For a minute, all was still and silent, cheered up only by the quiet crackling of fire gladly eating Harry's earlier summoned objects when he had deflected Voldemort's curses.

This time, Harry didn't allow himself to hope it was over, but the duel had drained him so much he had no strength left even for a _Protego_. Which proved to be his undoing.

In a single dramatic moment, the firestorm cleared, vanished into nothingness as if it had never existed, as if it were just some burst of fire from a matchstick instead of the formidable spell. Coming face to face with the Dark Lord's menacing form, Harry backed away.

"You are a capable young man, Mr. Potter." Pale lips stretched into a smirk. Crimson eyes glinted. "But-" A hand thrown up into the air. "-not capable enough."

Harry was thrown off his feet and flung hard to the wall a long distance away. When his back hit the surface, he heard a few bones crack, and then deeper pain dug into him.

Knives. The bastard had stabbed him with bloody conjured _knives_.

Harry groaned and tried to lift his hand, but that proved to be a chore. All his limbs were frozen both by exhaustion and his wounds, and the lung he had punctured burnt, while the knife wounds weren't far behind on the scale of pain.

"Too inexperienced, you see. Too conceited. Too proud." The man's footsteps echoed all the way it took him to reach Harry and crouch in front of Harry's immobile body. A smirk bloomed on the handsome face. "You have no chance. I am a Dark Lord, child. I have mastered the Dark Arts and they are but slaves to me now. If you have any hope of defeating me in a duel, I ask you to reconsider your fallacious plans."

As he waved his wand to heal some of the damage inflicted on Harry, mostly just wounds that could prove to be fatal if not treated immediately, he continued speaking.

"But you are willing to fight despite those odds. I have noticed it in the Pensieve memories of your duels. Even when you were a battered mass of blood and bones, you went on fighting and inventing tricks and pulling aces out of your sleeves... This is why I desire to further your potential. You are a great asset to me, Mr. Potter, and I am bestowing upon you a chance to scrub off the taint of the negative heritage you carry."

Voldemort traced Harry face with his finger: the temple, the cheek, drifting to the full lips and pressing the grazes he had left, smearing the blood.

"I'm honoured," Harry replied hollowly, grimacing when his tongue touched upon the man's finger.

"As you must be," Voldemort replied curtly, standing up. He offered no hand to help Harry get up, and he also didn't heal the bruises, grazes, and knife gashes – just the punctured lung and broken bones.

The Dark Lord held up his hand to summon a rolled-up parchment, which he shoved into Harry. Now he went all business-like and brusque.

"The information you need is here. I await your presence in my study when the mission is complete." As soon as Harry balanced himself and could stand without grasping the air for support, Voldemort petted his hair with an almost affectionate hand. "I'll sculpt you into a masterpiece yet." His smile, wide, close-mouthed, was gleaming in the dim training-room light. "When I am through with your coarse talent, it will be a weapon of beauty and of power. For the Dark Side, of course. I expect us to see a lot of each other, Mr. Potter."

The Dark Lord parted from him, and Harry felt a tear at his navel and felt the impossible-to-mistake sensations of an apparition.

His mind was reeling from the encounter.

He had been defeated and was now sore, and Harry knew that half the Hogwarts population would be black and blue after all the hexes and curses he was going to try, but Voldemort had revealedhis more merciful side today, and had demanded Harry's explicit presence, and even duelled with him – which was an honour not bestowed even upon Lucius and the other higher tier 'Eaters.

Those privileges were a symbol and a token of what he could receive in his loyalty to the Dark side and the Dark Lord, and yet the happiness they inspired was stale and dead and fabricated, and Harry understood at once wherein Lord Voldemort's mistake lied: the man had assumed him to be one more of the constant stream of cronies, a wild and untamed one, but still craving for affection and attentions. Today, the Dark Lord had been securing Harry's position on the Dark side, and had imagined those tricks to be the right ones to lure him in.

He was wrong.

Harry's life path lay out in front of him as unchanging as ever, and no courting would ever twist it.

_Well, if he is so ignorant and prune to mistakes... It is not my fault. You misstep, my dear Dark Lord, and it's your bad I'm too immoral a dancer to not take advantage of your failure._

For some reason, his magic was important to the Dark Lord, probably because of the possibilities its existence provided for the war effort against the Resistance.

Today, he had lost a battle. But he would win the war.

* * *

_September, 8th_

"Lucius, I want you to be an etiquette tutor for Harry Potter," Voldemort announced through a cup of tea, keeping his eyes on one of the many battle plans littering his study.

He derived enjoyment from the sight of Lucius sputtering and making a face as he attempted to 'reason' with his master. Voldemort suppressed a surge of irritation, which wasn't problematical after yesterday's proceedings and the amount of pure power he had experienced – magical power almost equal to his if trained.

Perfect for his goals.

"Excuse me, my Lord?" Lucius tentatively questioned, setting aside the report he had been reading out loud. His aristocratic eyebrow jumped into his hairline. "I must have heard ill. You were saying-"

"I am well aware of what I have been saying," Voldemort replied coldly, knowing that it was the malicious gleam of his eyes and the tightening of his aura around him that shut the pureblood up and made him swallow. "You would do well not to question me in future, Lucius, or you might find that your son doesn't need his hands as much as you think."

Lucius paled dramatically and bowed his head in submission.

Smugness and pleasure travelled through Voldemort.

Purebloods, the cream of the Wizarding World, the mainstay of its culture and traditions, the greatest supporters of the Dark- All grovelling at his feet, worshipful and admiring, some fearing him, some hating him, some loving him, and everyone respecting him.

The world of his dreams since his childhood. The reality he lived in today.

"I'm sorry, my Lord, it's simply..." Lucius trailed off and took a deep breath, gathering whatever courage resided in his slippery soul. "Do you perhaps notice that you're giving too much leeway to that boy, Potter? The other day, when I offered to deal with him myself, you-"

"I? You misunderstand." A deep chuckle rang out in the room, and Voldemort smirked when Lucius mirrored it with his own in wariness. "The boy is of no consequence to me. But I would be cautious of Bella; she doesn't appreciate her toys broken by someone else."

"A toy? She loves the boy like she would her own son," Lucius said sharply before his face screwed up into a grimace. "It's not her fault she is a failure of a mother."

_I should pit them against each other soon, Potter and Bella. That boy mustn't stagnate. My challenges are going to be good for him. Or at least break him completely and make it easier for me to go through with my plans for him._

"Do what you must, Lucius. Potter must be educated in the matters of wizarding etiquette and politics," Voldemort issued a dismissive order. When the door behind Lucius softly closed, he settled into his armchair, put aside his cup of strong sugar-less tea, and thought.

He had never felt as elated.

Harry Potter.

The son of mudblood and blood traitor, he was one of the most powerful children Voldemort had ever met – even in his infantry. Voldemort inspected all the children of high-ranking Death Eaters, to which category Lily and James had belonged, and he had encountered such oppressive power only in two children, one of whom had died soon.

Yet, after _that _incident he had ignored Potter completely. Until the whispers of his power and duelling prowess spread like flames, and Voldemort had snatched Pensieve memories to watch, and had witnessed that strength and grace and potential.

Truly, it was a pity the boy wouldn't get an opportunity to use that potential, for Voldemort had his own schemes regarding the child.

Then again...

He remembered luscious lips that had felt velvety under his touch, the green eyes that smouldered and aroused, and the polished graceful movements, and the perky backside on his stomach- Hmm. He might enjoy the boy for a bit before carrying through with his Plan.

The spark of pity was easy to drown: the man knew Potter had his own agenda, and that Greyback hadn't dropped dead because of old age or a sudden decease.

Lord Voldemort had no pity for potential threats, and when he could use one, no amount of physical attractiveness or potential usefulness could change his mind. He was a Dark Lord, not a mercy-granting fairy.

But a bit of games?

He never refused to play. That gift, he was willing to present to Potter before the child would be drenched too deep in the Dark Lord's manipulations.

* * *

Next Chapter: Harry's first mission. And maybe, if that doesn't take up too much of the word count, a brief meeting with Voldy, too.

I admit that initially the part with Tom's pov was much larger, taking up half the chapter and with Snape in the picture, but I decided that it could reveal too much, and so shortened it, leaving only the basics of Voldemort's side of things to show that his plans regarding Harry are _really_ unromantic (for some time, at least) and, despite their little moment, no, it isn't some kind of an outburst of love.

After this, there's going to be quite a bit of flirting and their interactions, but most of it will be based on basic lust and games for a while. And again, after Harry's mission, the Light will be on the move, too.


	6. Chapter 6 No Man's Tool

Thanks for your wonderful, wonderful reviews! Once again, I'm a tad overworked, so I'll have to reply to them after uploading the chapter. It's just that my Internet connection might be cut off in a couple of hours, so I figured it'd be better if I made it in time to put up the chapter and replied later rather than vice-versa :) So, please, don't be angry if I reply only tomorrow.

While the last chapter was a bit embarrassing for Harry and more about his losses, this one along with the next one and another one deal with his triumphs :) As promised, things are going faster now, and after about three chapter there'll be a month's long time-skip.

* * *

**Chapter 6. No Man's Tool**

* * *

_September, 10__th__._

Harry was staring at Voldemort's parchment. Again. The lines came to life and were mockingly ringing in his mind.

Trust the bloody Dark Lord to be a pain in the arse even to the person he supposedly 'favoured'.

What had ticked Harry off?

Oh, he had a striking amount of five problems on his hands.

Problem one. Gregory Goyle.

Harry grimaced. Vast reserves of magic and a relentless, ruthless style – those traits characterised the boorish teen. He could even be useful... apart from the bit where he had no brain and trailed after Harry like a love-sick puppy, sneering and jibing all the way. The guy also had next to none people skills, wielding his pureblood title with all the finesse of a whale-elephant hybrid.

Missions with socialising in them? Harry was one squad member short there.

Problem two. Draco Malfoy.

Hmm... Harry had a few uses for the chap's lordship, and the dislike he held for the blond didn't negate his eye for handy people: as a squad leader, Harry was Malfoy's superior in the Death Eater hierarchy and thus could demand certain things, in addition to the debt the pureblood had forged in exchange for Harry's protection while still disgraced and despised.

The older Slytherin was fairly good in a fight – their mock wall-on-wall battles and single duels under Crouch's watchful eye had showed with a stark white clarity. Malfoy possessed neither Goyle's sheer quantity of magic, nor Harry's inventiveness and imaginative use of spells, but his monkeyshines fooled his opponents with their underhandedness: tripping hexes (then summoning knives or spears for the person to fall onto), levitation of odd objects, use of explosive potions, summoning of intestines through the skin and what not.

At the same time, Harry wasn't satisfied with Malfoy's vain ways – the bloke was more likely to strike a ridiculously swoon-worthy pose and toss high words proving his superiority and sating his arrogance at the opponent rather than swiftly dispose of the adversary. Besides, what if the blond's meticulously gelled hair got dishevelled?

Ah, the horror. He would probably withdraw from the battle for good.

Problem three. Hermione Granger.

Granted, she herself wasn't that much of a problem: Harry had sweet-talked to her once again to ascertain that their lesson would happen. He had been pleasantly surprised when she had looked like Yule come early at his coming, and then the realisation hammered home: the Light side had notified her of his potential 'change' of affiliations.

With each day, Harry could feel her calculative eyes that sliced through him to discern the very core of his intentions. Unyielding, demanding explanation, perceptive, they followed him in the library and in the corridors, in the Great Hall and in class, on Hogwarts grounds and on Hogsmeade trips...

_I must teach some tricks on how to stay hidden to the dear girl. Her attempts at stalking are as transparent as Pansy Parkinson's informal "sexy" robes._

Let her see. Let her see and report. The way other students, Slytherins especially, ostracised him (admittedly less now, but the feeling still hung in the air), the way Wizarding Studies professor Araminta Meliflua scrunched her nose as if smelling rotten muggle corpses at the sight of him, the way the staff with the darker affiliations put him down repeatedly in their classrooms...

For Harry, the fury at the treatment was a long-forgotten stage. For Granger, on the other hand...

Well, Harry loathed pity when it implied weakness and was directed at the _real_ him, but when his public persona inspired it, the pride was silent and stifled. It hadn't always been like this, and there had been a time when every little thing could make him blow up, but practice worked wonders.

Problem four. Thorfinn Rowle.

That man was supposed to be the instructor, the obligatory one for all squads. His role was to guide the junior Death Eaters into the acceptance of killing and extremist attitude towards all things Light and muggle.

Harry scoffed. From what he had heard, Thorfinn Rowle had neither the patience nor enthusiasm to be saddled with a group of Hogwarts students, and according to rumours that was all because the man had lost a bet or something equally mundane and ridiculous, something Harry himself would have never allowed to happen.

Still, the man was good. Powerful, brutal in his fight, but not without a smidgen of brains in him. Harry had to pull some strings and dig up some of the more personal info, of course, probably in the next week, when Zacharias would no longer be so preoccupied with whatever haunted him these days and would fulfil his responsibilities as Harry's dutiful 'friend'. 'Dutiful' being the key word here.

The choice of the instructor was important.

Harry would have to work with the man for a long time, and although arranging an assassination – maybe he could even carry it out himself – was not out of the question, Harry preferred less drastic measures if not necessary.

But the callous options never left his mind for a second.

Problem four. Harry's last minion. Susan Bones.

Nothing special, neither in physical appearance nor in smarts, _but_...

She was the niece of the presumed-missing Amelia Bones, who Harry didn't doubt enjoyed her stay at the Resistance quarters, and the daughter of newly proclaimed traitors to the Dark Lord.

Charming, no?

Which wonderfully led to the last of the most pressing problems he now faced, namely: the mission.

_Destroy the Bones family, all bar Susan Bones. The house must be searched thoroughly before being burnt down. No hostages are allowed. The consequences of defying the Dark Lord must be shown._

Of course, Susan Bones herself was not allowed to slack off and close her eyes on the deaths of her father and mother. She must be _present_. Moreover, she must actively participate, because if not, Rowle would report her inaction to the Dark Lord, and that would earn the girl a round of interrogation with Evan Rosier. Harry knew intimately well that days in the cell with that inhumane creatures looming somewhere nearby was not all tea and crumpets.

He felt... a kinship of a kind. To the girl he didn't know.

Harry abruptly rose from his seat and resolved to get things done instead of acting out a sulking child all day long. Brooding didn't excuse idleness. He had a myriad of matters to take care of – might just as well sort them out.

And as he walked through the intricate pattern of Hogwarts hallways and hidden passageways, passing gossiping portraits and immobile armours, the fuss in his mind eventually settled. All thoughts and ideas disentangled with every breath he took, lying plain for him to see and sort through, and the process only quickened its pace as he ambled out of the castle and took a trip to the lake that placidly shimmered under the sun.

Harry was arrogant. He was prune to lose control when his parents were mentioned or the memory of them sullied (which was the same thing nowadays). He hated losing. He got infuriated easily.

And yet, for all those quirks and foibles, when he regained the control over his life and the ability to pull the strings himself, when he calmed down and took a moment to think and scheme and calculate...

They never saw him coming.

Walking up to the edges of the Great Lake, Harry waved his wand to conjure a plaid, and dropped onto it a second later, stretching out under the hot sunrays and grinning in welcome to the warmth. People usually took him for a cold-loving person. Harry hated cold; had always done since beginning to live in the forever-chilly Lestrange Manor.

The day was unusually hot for autumn, so he wasn't the only one to get the clever idea of nestling outside the castle, but most others preferred to be farther than that, so the shouts and laughter rang out only as mere shadows instead of noisy bubbling sounds.

Once again, Harry concentrated on his plans.

Whatever sense of empathy he could feel towards Susan Bones, who had yet to drink from that cup of watching the beloved ones die, it wasn't the pressing concern of Harry's. None at all. Harry had tasted pain, was numb to it now, whether it was his own or someone else's, and thus the compassion gnawed at him like a gentle nip, reminding him of his humanity, not like a seizing bite that tore through the self-erected shields of impassivity he had built.

The main issue lay in the Order.

More exactly, how his actions would be perceived by the Resistance if he were indeed to kill two members of their own.

If they found out – and with both Granger and Bones there, Harry didn't doubt it for a moment – no matter how much Death Eaters and Slytherins hated him, it wouldn't be enough to drown the claim of being a murderer and home-wrecker. They wouldn't accept him into their fold. He would never be able to regain their trust, and they would never disclose the secrets that truly mattered even if he got in by some miracle.

Harry clenched his teeth, his darkening expression scaring away a bird nearby.

He couldn't afford that. For all his self-assurance, Harry was aware he would never be able to destroy the Dark Lord _and _survive the aftermath all on his own; he needed someone to fall back onto, someone to provide him the most basic tools if his plans miscarried. The Resistance was the most obvious, not to mention the only, choice. Especially considering the growth in influence and competence it had been having in the recent years.

And so, Harry couldn't afford carrying out the orders, and he couldn't afford _not _carrying out the orders.

Go figure.

Harry willed his body to relax. The lines on his forehead smoothed out, his ears drowned out the already faint noises, and he forced out a tiny bit of his magical aura to crack through and scare away the wizards he wasn't in the mood to mingle with.

He didn't notice how his eyes closed.

He imagined all the matters he had to solve as puzzle pieces, and all the pieces of information he had, all the means at hand, as the glue which held them together. When his aggravation with the general peskiness of people settled into simple awareness and acknowledgement, his mind worked, quickly, efficiently. It sought out the loopholes in his premonition and ways to realise his plans without any losses, gain only.

The puzzle pieces clicked into place.

_I wonder, my Lord... _A thought sneaked past the pleasant haze of contentment. _Is it the same for you? We are both geniuses, you and I, although you undoubtedly have had more experience and opportunities to apply it practically. You, for all your megalomania, are the person I feel most kinship with amongst this crowd. I wonder if you feel this way too – exhilarant, self-assured, proud of yourself, when you work out your own dilemmas. I know that others don't feel that way. And I wonder if you do._

Then again, how did this question even get in his head? Ah, he must certainly be more tired than he imagined.

After that disastrous, embarrassing duel the impressions of Voldemort had been haunting him too much for it to be normal or healthy. The magic. The power. The delicious _danger_ and the attention concentrated on him-

Harry needed a vacation. Surely, it was stress talking; no other way for his thoughts towards the Dark Lord to be so placid.

* * *

The Room of Requirement was a wonderful place. Harry's thoughts could mould it in any form he liked, and his gait was always stealthy whenever he moved past tapestries and portraits and students, so no one but him ever used that well of opportunity the room presented.

And the best thing was that the magic performed in the Room didn't leave a trace in the castle's wards. The Headmaster couldn't read his signature, couldn't find out which spells Harry mastered or invented there and couldn't tell which potions he brewed. The place provided an absolute protection from this type of spying; as secure as dragon's caves it was.

Harry would be a fool not to use it.

"Done," he murmured to himself gleefully, standing up from his kneeling position. His sharp green eyes checked every rune, every symbol, every Arythmantic combination carefully drawn on the floor.

He chose a simple design for the Room today; everything else was bound to be a distraction. Every distraction meant the loss of his life – and while Harry acknowledged the devastating truth that it probably wouldn't matter much to anyone, he loved his life and didn't wish to diminish its length.

The walls were bare, the furniture included and was limited with a plain oak table on the far side, littered with an athame, a book opened at the page he needed, his school bag, and the parchment with his notes.

The circles on the floor were perfect: all clear, sharp lines carved into stone, and bordered with tiny runes and numbers, creating a web-like picture on the stony surface. Harry surveyed his masterpiece with an entranced stare.

He couldn't wait to admire the ritualistic drawings when he poured his magic into them, making them shine and glitter better than the sconces on the walls.

Then his expression morphed into one of disappointment and wry grimace. Harry doubted he would be able to appreciate the bewitching picture through the agony of having his Occlumency shields torn open, admitting entrance to the magic of the ritual, and then having his mind re-organise itself. All brutally painful, of course. And it took a very long time.

Harry dug his fingernails into the tender skin of his palms. He despised himself for that slip, for falling into the clutches of the fear that pain inspired in him at times.

He was no stranger to hurt. Yet sometimes the promise of it hovered over him like a cloud of anxiety.

He _needed_ the ritual. He had tolerated Bella's curse's, and Malfoy's, and Rosier's, so surely the rite of temporary acquisition of Legilimency couldn't hurt more than their spells had hurt?

Harry tucked his hair behind his ears, inhaled, and started the chant. It echoed off the bare walls, returning to him amplified in volume and in quantity, his voice powerful and ringing and loud. Harry wasn't good at singing, but at the moment the magic of the ritual guided him, not his clumsy attempts to hum a song, and not for the first time he appreciated greatly his magical power not only for its allure and benefit, but for the sheer beauty of that ancient force.

The magic poured into the runes, the circles, and as he had predicted filled every nook and cranny of the carvings. They glowed on the grey stones. Harry's own voice, still amplified by the empty room, reverberated in a crescendo of obscure spells.

Magic. It danced in the air and pulled him in to join it in the controlled madness of the moment.

Harry didn't need the book anymore; his power guided him.

...And continued to guide him even when the sudden spike of agony drove out the elation, and a broken gasp interrupted his chant, and the world in front of his eyes tilted and erupted into a foxtrot of motley smudges.

The ritual was tearing apart his mental shields. Harry gritted his teeth, forcing on a smile and forcing out a laugh, like his mother had taught him.

He coaxed himself into understanding the purpose of it all, reminded his weeping mind of the threat the Dark Lord presented, of his own pathetic inability to win, of his parents' deaths, of his goal – everything. He dug up everything to divert his attention from the invisible claws that scrabbled and tore through his mental safeguards with enviable sadism.

He didn't care that laughs, not unlike a madman's, broke through the ritual chant. He didn't care that the magic swirling around him in the elegant motions of waltz had a power to blow up half the Hogwarts. He didn't care that it was a miracle the Headmaster hadn't come barging in with an investigation squad because of all that force.

He concentrated on his memories and thoughts.

The pain lessened. The ritual was successful. Harry was one step closer to overthrowing the Dark Lord.

As he dropped to his knees, clutching his forehead, he couldn't stop a mad grin breaking out on his handsome face, just as he couldn't stop the tendrils of powerful Legillimency that now emanated from his body.

* * *

_September, 12__th__._

"There's something different about you, Potter," Zacharias muttered through a frown by way of greeting. "You look a tad... constipated?"

_That's because I can now hear every thought you and all the inhabitants of the castle have at the moment._

Harry smiled sweetly. Acquiring a temporary talent didn't mean controlling it. He would keep that in mind for the next time the idea to conduct a tricky Dark ritual hit him.

"Dear Zach, I don't advise you opening your mouth for another time lest you want me to stuff your intestines in it." Harry ignored the disgusted flinch from his friend. "I'm armed and _very _annoyed."

Alas, for now he was stuck with the need to sort out the thoughts he wanted to hear, needed to hear, and _never_ wanted to hear. He hadn't been doing much progress thus far. Foreign minds spread out before him without his volition, and while at first it had been entertaining to snicker at the hidden desires of some brain-dead fools, it had gotten old fast. The main reason lay in the way Harry had acquired the ability: he had forced it along with the ritual instead of allowing the natural process of transition from Occlumency to Legilimency take place, and had to reap the consequences along with the sacrifice he would have to make in ten days.

If only he had had more time...

_Well, no use crying over spilt milk, _Harry told himself firmly.

"Believe me, Potter, your annoyance is not that hard to miss," Zacharias deadpanned and pulled out a chair to drop on it immediately. The chair loudly scratched the wooden floor.

A few students hissed at them or threw them dirty looks for daring to disrupt the sanctity of the Hogwarts library, but neither of the teens paid any mind. Harry still stuck his nose in a dog-eared tome,

"Potter. I see you with a book."

"Yeah, I gather that."

"No, I mean, it's not homework. You are- what? Actually reading for pleasure?"

"Not for pleasure but out of necessity." Harry sighed in exasperation and annoyance. "Duelling, Smith. I have to keep my status as the best dueller, and it'd be sort of impossible to accomplish that without reading up on spells and techniques at least occasionally."

Zacharias shot him a what-the-hell sort of look before it changed to the ordinary pureblood nonchalance. Legilimency, though, allowed Harry to take a sneak peek at the confusion spinning under the dirty blonde hay of hair. Well, battle spells weren't research papers; reading up on practical curses and hexes and jinxes didn't blow up Harry's cover. He wanted to look simply academically disinclined, not a dolt.

"I've just always took you more for a hands-on kind of guy," Zacharias explained in a matter-of-fact tone with a shrug and a disconcerted expression distorting his face. "You always pick up on spells quickly- Well, when you need to blow up some poor chap's brains in his head. You can't cast a Levitation Charm if your life depended on it. Your range of talents is rather limited."

"At least, I have it. _You_ cannot boast of the same thing." Harry's lips stretched into a smirk and he tapped his cheek. "Besides, it's just my luck to have such strong duelling abilities. If not for them, the Dark Lord would have wiped the floor with me the other day-" _And he still did, but..._

Zacharias sucked in a breath and interrupted Harry's smooth flow of speech.

"You actually saw him? Duelled with him?" His eyes were alight with excitement that was emphasised by the feel Harry's Legilimency gave him, and he bounce up and down in his seat before regaining control of himself. He coughed in his fist with all the reserve and haughtiness of a pureblood noble and continued without the delight lacing his voice. "Potter, I don't know whether I am impressed with you or concerned."

"Concerned?" Harry threw his head back with a snort and surveyed the other through half-hooded eyes.

Zacharias sneered before his eyes gleamed and his lips quirked in a fox-like grin.

"You are the best source of Slytherin gossip I have, Potter. I hope you remember our deals and what you get out of them."

"What we _both_ get out of them," Harry corrected the teen sharply. His merit was his. No one had the right to claim it. "Stop treating yourself like some bloody altruist all the time, Smith. You're as charitable as Malfoy is brave. Our... relationship provides a lot of benefit for us both, and don't you dare minimise what _you _gain out of me or the role the information I provide plays in your shady dealings with the Slytherin part of the school."

Paling, Zacharias could only mutter his apology. He resisted Harry's glowers; he scrammed before the green arctic gaze.

Harry read the disgruntlement, mild anger, and stubbornness. With a derisive snort he shrugged and returned to his text. He had more important things to do than soothe a boy's wounded pride. The silence hung.

"What was he like?" Zacharias suddenly pierced through the stillness between them. At Harry's arch of elegant eyebrow he elaborated. "The Dark Lord. I know I've asked this of you already, but now you have some new impressions of him."

"This question doesn't come for free." Harry pulled his lips apart to reveal his teeth. Strike. Just the offer he had been waiting for to clinch his manipulation.

Zacharias bristled and clenched his fist, but didn't dare grab Harry's collar or do something equally idiotic. For all his derisive remarks regarding Harry's intelligence and knowledge of general spellwork, he feared Harry in a battle, and for Harry all the situations in which manhandling was involved were a battle.

Harry nodded with satisfaction when Zacharias reigned in his temper, exhaling.

"The price?"

The sweet smile from earlier found its way back onto Harry's face. Somehow, it suited him less than the shark-like grin or smirk he sometimes flaunted.

"Nothing over the top. Just a batch of a potion I want and you _will_ provide it to me." Not a note of doubt entered his calm tone. Only a tinge of glee coloured the otherwise neutral remark.

"You're so full of yourself!" Zacharias hissed. Harry cocked his head at the pathetic loss of temper. From the corner of his eye he spied Granger flickering a concerned glance at their pair. Although the silencing wards he had placed earlier didn't allow a sound out, the expression of anger on Zacharias's face was unmistakeable.

Oh, so the little miss know-it-all was there too? Swell.

Zacharias Smith didn't have the best of reputations amongst the Resistance. There were some fishy plans drifting about him that even Harry didn't delve in, and while he hadn't committed any truly cruel, inhumane acts, for the Light side the fact that he gambled, blackmailed, bribed, forged and what not was enough to condemn him.

Their closeness might someday cast shadows on Harry's own secret reputation in the Order ranks. If Granger chirps to the Lighties that they had a rift, it would only be advantageous.

Harry returned his attention to the spluttering Zacharias.

"-I can't believe it! You are almost failing half your grades, most notably Transfiguration, you are a troublemaker, you managed to get Crucioed on your first meeting with the Dark Lord- and you have the gall to _demand_ things of me with all the certainty of an impending Avada! I don't know what went wrong with your brain, Potter, maybe Lestrange cursed you to the head one time too much-"

"Are you done?" Harry asked serenely. He flicked a page. Living with the Lestranges had acquainted him with the ability to keep calm while some other person raved. Practice had made him perfect at it. "Now, hear what I have to say." Harry enforced his voice with a touch of magic as he leaned over the table to grasp Zacharias's chin and whisper close to his mouth. "If you behave and do as told, I will share bits of my memory of him with you. The impressions of the Dark Lord himself, Zacharias. His power, his cunning, his aura- You will feel it as I have felt, and understand as I have understood."

Through the newly acquired Legilimency the reflections of his own eyes travelled back to Harry along with Zacharias's own perceptions of it. _Seductive. Enchanting. Mesmerising._

Harry stifled a smirk at the emotions he inspired. His magic inspired, to be more correct.

He pulled away from the sandy-haired teen and beamed at him. "Don't you believe I deserve some fairly costly mashed bits and pieces of dead animals and plants for this?"

_Not that I will share everything, of course. Just enough to blind you with your trust in me further. We are _friends_ after all, aren't we?_

Zacharias's skin shone with paleness and his pupils were dilated. Oops. Maybe Harry had overdone the magic he had pushed into his voice: that skill he had acquired only that summer. He would master it shortly. But not now.

A deep breath, then a repeat.

"I am sorry, Harry, for blowing up on you like this," Zacharias drawled tonelessly. Harry inclined his head with a hum; here came the person he was used to deal with, not that short-tempered nitwit with his emotions on the sleeve. "I- I am just going through a difficult period- Well, not I, but a relative of mine, so I've been almost a hermit for a week now, all cooped up in the dorms or in the far corner of the library. I was afraid the stress would catch up with me and I would do something I regret-" His lips twitched wryly. "-And lo and behold, it happens."

Harry was discomfited. Was Zacharias expecting him to... sympathise? Comfort him? Tell sweet nothings?

_Morgana, I'll grey prematurely with this sort of obstacles. Do I... urgh... Hug him? Convince him that life's good and all that?_

Eventually, Harry reached with the tendrils of Legilimency that were always lazing about him, ready to come at his call, and followed Zacharias's desires: stretched his hand to pat the other teen's arm in a comforting way and said with as much empathy as he could muster, "You know that I'm your friend, Zach. Although I can never be as cunning as you-" _Because I far surpass your level. _"-I have my wand and I have some bloody strong magic. And a vengeful streak that outstretches to my friends, too. If you want to gut a bastard with a barrage of nasty curses, I'm up for the challenge."

Harry hoped that was comforting enough. Legilimency told him so. And he found that using that temporary force like this, for menial tasks that required concentration on a single person allowed him some respite from the rest of the students in the library: he directed all the tendrils on Zacharias and the others' thoughts faded.

Zacharias threw the invading hand a lost look before relaxing and snorting with a sneer – how both expressions coexisted Harry had no idea.

"Well, that's typical you, Potter: all brawn and no brain. And, no, thanks, it is not the kind of problem you solve with brute force- But we were talking about a deal between us." Blue eyes sharpened as the teen paused. "I don't have a Pensieve here at Hogwarts, so your part of deal will have to wait. But my grandmother is planning on sending me a package tomorrow, so if you tell me what you want now, I'll send her a letter this evening. Tomorrow you will probably have your potion."

Harry nodded briskly.

"So... What is it you want, Potter?" Suspicion lurked under the gloss of amiability.

Harry smirked, and Zacharias shivered. It was a dark smirk, Harry knew. Most of his expressions usually were.

"Polyjuice." The word spilt out of his lips easily, and he laughed at Zacharias's stricken expression. _Wary, frightened, alarmed... You have the right to be all those things, Smith. But fear not: my plan doesn't concern you. In fact, you will never even catch whiff of the trick I'll pull._

"I don't want to know what you are going to do with it," Zacharias said simply. Harry shrugged.

"Neither of us sticks his nose in the other's business. That's part of the contract between us, correct? You keep your shady manipulations, and I keep my petty quarrels."

And so, silence reigned again.

Harry was deep in thought. He had tried force with Voldemort, foolishly deeming the dictionary of spells he had accrued enough for the deed, and had allowed himself to grow arrogant during the duel, had allowed himself to be swept by the dance and song of their twining auras, had allowed himself to grow entranced, _aroused_ – he grimaced – by the Dark Lord's thrall.

The man had admitted it himself: Voldemort was the _Master _of Dark Arts. They bent to his orders and razed the resistance. He controlled every last filament of Dark magic.

Harry would never compare. The certainty was like a guillotine: impending, dreadful, but also, in a way, freeing.

It had opened his eyes to the meaning of the title of the Dark Lord, had provided him with a sneak peek at the sensation of bearing the mantle of that status. The realisation pushed him to seek other methods, other than magic or battle, to destroy the man.

And so, Harry sought.

Not only magic-wise, but in demeanour, too. Trickery was the way to go now, and Harry needed to polish his skills. What better opportunity would turn up than the challenge of saving an Order member right under the nose of Death Eaters?

Harry wanted to laugh.

Eventually, Zacharias pulled out his books and started on his homework. Harry flipped through his own book.

Zacharias didn't notice that Harry had never allowed him to catch a glimpse of the title. But there it was, carved in golden letters, shining just like the sort of magic the book guarded was supposed to shine: _Olde Light Magicks_.

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**Next Chapter:** the reasons why Harry needs Legilimency at all and more about the ritual, a duel (not with Voldemort though), and the major part of his plan to save the Bones family without being accused of treason or whatever.

Also, I wanted to clarify for the future: the Resistance and the Order aren't necessarily the same thing. The Order is the leading organisation of the Resistance, but there are a lot of smaller groups and families that fight with the Dark Lord's forces on their own.


	7. Chapter 7 Are You the King?

Hello! A huge thanks for your reviews! I'll reply to them in a couple of hours. I actually intended to post this chapter a couple of weeks ago, but then I broke my wrist and was too little of a kamikaze to write 6k of words with a single hand. So, the weekend has been a bit of a marathon for me :)

I think that this chapter is my favourite in the entire story. Hope you share this opinion :D Oh, and would anyone like to beta-read this story? I guess that more than anything I need someone encouraging, because I ream into myself without outside help, and have those awful bouts of depression when I think that no one ever reads my stories anyway and it doesn't make much sense to write them... so yeah.

I think I wanted to tell you something Very Important, but if I can't remember what it is, then it can't be that important...

Read and enjoy!

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**Chapter 7. Are You the King?**

* * *

Harry's dreams were a scary world of broken memories and pain and sadness. Darkness never granted him the relief of soothing shadows. Instead, like bluish corpses, recollections dragged themselves up to the surface of his mind, tearing him away from peaceful blackness. Sometimes, his dreams flashed imaginary possibilities, things that never happened but hurt to think about, like Harry's dead parents haunting him and, gurgling blood, reproving his slowness.

Why was it taking him so long to avenge them?

Why did he follow Voldemort's rules? Studying Dark Magic, accepting the Dark Mark, not fighting harder to get to the Light...

Was he turning out to be a Dark wizard?

Did he not love the memory of them enough to fully support the Light Side, not only in its opposition to the Dark Lord, but in its ideals and priorities? Did he not love the memory of them enough to hate the Dark Lord not because of their own deaths but simply because of his title and what it entailed?

He called them dreams, but in they were nightmares. Pieces of possible reality.

So, when Harry closed his eyes that night, he didn't expect anything to differ from the usual routine.

It did.

He blinked. An invisible hand wiped off the sluggishness that came with sleep.

The study was as luxurious as it had been the last time he had visited it: the sturdy furniture that reflected the strength of its owner, the lined stacks of books and parchment crowding the desk and the shelves, the carpets and comfy armchairs...

Harry's gaze drifted across all those items and pulled to a complete stop when it clashed with amused crimson orbs.

"Good evening, child," His bloody Majesty Dark Lord Voldemort greeted.

Harry simply stared. Wasn't he supposed to control his dreamscape?

When he realised that the surrealistic situation wasn't changing, a nagging feeling that it wasn't his imagination at work hit him. Harry drew up to his full height, schooling his features into respect, and allowed the Dark Lord's magnificent presence to envelop him.

Admittedly, the powerful aura only made him grit his teeth inwardly. He was still sore after his defeat the last time they had seen each other. How humiliating.

"Good evening, my Lord," Harry finally replied, keeping his voice even and smooth. He swept the room with a glance again, this time for show. "I daresay it is a rather... unusual method of summoning a follower."

_And unpleasant. Why, when you just want to have a shut-eye, you get a Dark Lord jumping at you out of the blue instead?_

Voldemort simply quirked an eyebrow in response before drawing closer. Harry refused to stagger back, rejected the notion of keeping his eyes away – Occlumency protected his mind anyway.

The man's footfalls resounded like a quiet drum in the soft silence of his office. When Voldemort clapped his hand on Harry's shoulder, Harry endured the touch with no show of emotion except for the expected facade of being flattered and awed by the attention the man showered him with.

"Do you know how many opportunities dreams present?" Voldemort asked Harry, leaning in to eye the younger wizard with gleaming claret eyes. Their shadows intertwined on the dimly-lit walls.

Harry replied through the lump in his throat, "Opportunities for communication? For spying the most sacred and coveted desires which run unhinged in a person's dreamscape?"

Voldemort's lips twisted. Burning crimson sparkled with malevolent amusement.

"If you believe I seek hidden desires, I find myself astounded and alarmed that you would see me as part of them."

Harry's respectful smile sweetened the irritation that smouldered his insides. The arrogance of the man-!

"Hard to lie and say that I've never considered going out of my way to impress you, my Lord," Harry attempted. He timed his bow so that he forced Voldemort to retreat his hand lest the man found himself hit by Harry's bobbing head. Unfortunately, the Dark Lord didn't move away. "To hold your regard, your respect... I'd say these are my major aspirations in this life, the ambitions that everybody under your rule shares."

Harry closed his eyes. A train of throaty chuckles that responded pierced through the darkness that descended his eyes.

"My, my, laying it thick tonight, child?"

Harry could use a hundred and a half excuses, dozens of way to prove his mock-sincerity and divert possible accusations...

He stayed silent. The dream, or reality that felt like one – he couldn't be too sure – clouded his judgement. Nothing made sense: not how he had appeared in the Dark Lord's study, not why, not what for. He wondered why that wasn't freaking him out more, like it should... He blamed the dream's haze for that.

Calmly, all his movements measured and soaked with incongruous laze, Voldemort strolled to the coffee table upon which a bowl of fruit perched. Harry ogled the man as he bent over to tear a bunch of grapes from the cluster. Thin fingers lovingly caressed each berry before he scrutinised them and picked out just one, popping it into his mouth. As he turned to face Harry, his tongue flickered out to lick the corner of his mouth.

Without moving from his spot, he held out his hand to Harry.

"Taste it," Voldemort ordered imperiously. He stood unmoving like a statue, cold and waiting. Harry stared at the offered limb. The wine-coloured grapes adorned the hand with their attractive round shapes and delightful succulence and rich shade that promised an even richer flavour. The shadows blackened the colour.

Hesitation lacing his motions, Harry complied with the demand – how could he not?

Even if his mother had taught him not to accept food from maniacs. Or Dark Lords. Same thing, really.

Advancing forward with intentionally slow steps, his footfalls muffled by the carpet, Harry pulled to a stop mere feet away from the imposing wizard.

Harry pulled out a single grape with his two fingertips and brought it to his mouth, biting into it and enjoying the juice that flowed into his mouth. Not overly sweet, mostly acidic. His Adam's apple bobbed when he gulped it down. Voldemort's eyes never left his face, traced his every action and every change in mimicry.

"It was delicious, my Lord," Harry filled the strained silence that only he found strained. Voldemort raised an eyebrow in reply.

"After seeing you suck on that grape in that hungry way..." A mocking smirk flashed on Voldemort's face. Harry's knuckles whitened, even as hidden as they were by the fabric of his school robe. His expression stank of humiliation.

Harry blamed the dream, again and again, chanting the finger-pointing harangue in his head.

"Thank you, my Lord, but I believe I've imposed on your hospitality too much already," Harry probed. He knew he was risking with his refusal, but it could be taken as a candid display of shyness and reluctance to bother his Lord. "Maybe some other time-"

"I am not in the habit of making offers twice, child," Voldemort interrupted him with a dangerous lowering of tone. His bone-white spidery fingers cut through air in a quick motion as he moved his hand to toss the grapes into the bowl. None missed. A couple of them burst and layered the other fruit in a thinnest veneer of wine.

"-And sometimes I am not in the habit of making offers at all," the Dark Lord finished, watching Harry with that trademark unwavering gaze that had Harry so flustered and angry. Like a predator stalking its prey.

The man was testing him, Harry realised. But testing for what? How could Harry intentionally pass or fail when he didn't have an inkling what the crimson searched for in his own verdant eyes?

Voldemort moved to his own desk, leaning back against him, almost seating on the edge of it and facing Harry. His face frightened Harry with the extent of its impassivity: no emotion bled through, nothing passionate in a good or bad way, no amusement betrayed. A sheet of nothingness.

"Why did you summon me, my Lord?" Harry prodded when Voldemort proved himself fully capable of complete stillness and complete silence.

The watching unnerved Harry. Had always done, from the first conscious secret Harry had discovered in Lestrange Manor. From then on, the threat of punishment had driven out any wish for confiding into someone or sharing his secrets.

On the contrary, the scare had scarred him so deeply that every time people stared at him, every time other wizards gauged him or pierced him with calculating gazes, Harry felt afraid that the stares would reach too far and too deep, seeing things they had no business seeing and knowing bits of him Harry himself had buried long ago. Concealment meant full cover-up – even from himself at times.

Harry wouldn't allow anyone to look too deep into him, to Voldemort especially. He had to break the silence. With it, the gauging would break, too.

"Don't get cheeky with me, child," Voldemort chided Harry's impertinence. "I dislike my servants speaking out of turn. And you will soon find that you don't want me to dislike you or your actions."

"I'm sorry." Harry bowed. It was a bit jerky, another proof of the sleep getting to him and smothering the efficiency of his gestures, but he hoped the Dark Lord tossed that aside as unimportant – after all, who was Harry Potter in the larger scope of things? "Still, I don't think you make it a habit to interrupt your followers' sleep with a chat and a food offer." Harry narrowed his eyes slyly. "Not least because it must be a complicated spell to share a dreamscape with another wizard, especially through distance-"

Voldemort interrupted Harry's careful prodding for information.

"My Dark Mark eases the process greatly." When the Dark Lord noticed the widening of horrified green eyes, the level of cruelty his handsome face displayed rose a few notches. Teeth flashed. "Yes, it carries out many functions. The whole purpose of the Mark is to secure the loyalty and availability of my followers. What use can they be to me when I cannot reach them even through the mantle of sleep?"

The man's smirk was splitting his face in two. Harry stood numbly, unable to comprehend how he had allowed that vilest thing to mark his skin. If he had known that it did not only brand him like cattle, but also treated him like that, he-

"I want you to have etiquette lessons," Voldemort disrupted Harry's frantic train of thought. He wasn't grinning anymore but that smug gleam still twinkled in his crimson eyes, lighting them up with a gorgeously blazing fire.

Disappointed in himself at his numerous lapses, because sleep was not an excuse, Harry struggled to regain a semblance of control over himself.

"I had them when I was younger," Harry informed the Dark Lord stiffly. Etiquette lessons? Harry browsed his mind for any possible reason Voldemort would want him to have them once more. It came up empty. Unless-

Harry's eyes narrowed. If it was heading where he thought it was...

Life suddenly brightened.

Harry remembered a vague remark carelessly flipped by Parkinson about a Ministry ball thrown a few weeks from then. Although the Ministry functioned mostly in name only, what's with the Dark Lord around, those gatherings still presented an opportunity to acquaint oneself with the cream of society. Squad leaders were usually invited.

If Harry played that right, he would prove himself both to the Dark Lord and to the man's followers, shedding the grease of his parentage a tad more, thus securing himself a position closer to Voldemort, which would offer him more opportunities to discover the older wizard's weaknesses and exploit them. And, of course, there would be the Order's spies, too – never mind that probably he would become a "spy" for the Order himself.

"You realise, of course, that as things stand now, you will be making a laughing stock out of yourself if I let you out into the proper pureblood world unhinged?" Voldemort stretched his hand to grasp Harry's chin, turning it to the side as the man critically observed and made mental notes to himself. Pale fingers dug into the tender skin. Harry never broke eye-contact, even when he felt that they came close to drawing blood or when the wizard's every subsequent word carved into him unmercifully.

Harry hid a part of his nature, but it didn't mean he didn't appreciate recognition that he never got.

"Bold, cheeky, ignorant, boorish... Your only point of merit is your duelling capacity and the rare shred of intelligence and leadership skills that does shine through," Voldemort spoke his verdict, releasing Harry's chin with a sneer, as if throwing it away.

Harry wanted to shout that it was his mask of an ideal Gryffindor that prevented him from utilising those etiquette lessons that had been pounded into him, but restrained himself. Control. It was always about control and what came out on top: the higher purpose or the immediate whims and caprices.

The memories of his parents spurned the control on to win.

"Why choose me at all, then, my Lord?" Harry asked with a faux quivering tone that implied Harry's agreement with the characteristic. "Ah, not that I don't welcome it, of course, because I really, really do, but-"

Voldemort slapped his mouth. A hush snapped into place again.

Harry bit the inside of his cheek, inwardly seething. Their eyes clashed, challenging claret against furious viridescent. The prolonged shadows fought their dance again.

"You are rambling," the Dark Lord hissed, his mood suddenly changing as if hitting a switch. "I have no patience for bumbling fools with speech impediments. This Ministry gathering is special. We expect French ambassadors."

Harry temporarily chucked the offense aside in favour of blinking and re-thinking his plans for the ball.

Fabulous. Better and better.

France had cut off all the relations with the UK as soon as the Dark Lord claimed himself to be the new ruler of the country. The French, as a Light-dominated nation, couldn't stain themselves with such Dark associates, and so the borders had been staunchly guarded and the communication between the countries forbidden...

Until now.

Harry wouldn't be able to stay in the country once he offed Voldemort. Most of Europe remained Light-oriented, many of the Dark countries ideological opponents to the Dark Lord despite their magical orientation, but not one dared oppose the man. Needless to say, Harry need not underestimate the power of fear Voldemort inspired.

France, however, never concealed its true colours and its opposition. The Beauxbatons Headmistress in particular never cared for choosing her words while expressing her opinions on the Dark Lord.

Energised by that tidbit of information, Harry didn't exert through putting on an apologetic, compliant expression.

"So, I have to be on best behaviour, my Lord?" Harry batted his eyelashes innocently.

Voldemort waved him off, pulling away completely. "Lucius will explain what that entails. Remember that you represent my country, which in turn represents me. Every action you dish out will be judged, and-" Dark magic rose in a starting storm around the man. Harry shivered. "-Salazar help you if it will be judged unfavourably."

Harry nodded sharply in agreement with the Dark Lord's words. "Of course. What about my studies? Do I get to skip? Or is it a 'no fun' arrangement for everyone except Uncle Lucy with his craving to satisfy his daily bouts of sadism?" Harry tilted his head to emphasise his statement.

Voldemort's lips quirked upwards. Good. Harry would hate to leave the man angry.

"I promise it will be _very_ fun for you, child," the Dark Lord swore darkly. He rose from the edge of his desk and, this time without touching him, sought out Harry cheek to whisper into it in a tone that raised hackles and forced goosebumps onto Harry's skin. "You will get to have conversations with me. Every weekend. Delighted, are you?"

He drew back to watch the change in Harry's expression with coy half-hooded eyes and a conceited upturn of lips.

Harry fought to push a flattered expression onto his face instead of a horrified one. He realised he needed contact to succeed. He realised he had to weep in joy at the chance-

But the Dark Lord's company humbled and scared him as much as it thrilled him. The man's observations never went wrong, and Harry was aware of the dangers of underestimation. He avoided giving away too much, but every conversation the fear that Voldemort would dredge up enough proofs to conclude Harry's disloyalty resurfaced.

"I- I'm honoured-" Harry stuttered, even as he observed Voldemort's face through the lowered lashes in a look that people considered both coy and innocent. "But I really don't deserve this privilege-"

"Oh you don't," Voldemort interrupted his starting flow of self-deprecation with a flippantly cold voice. "The luck stands on your side though, and I do believe you are not completely bereft of irredeemable features. Although we will talk more about this once you actually prove to me and to the others that my choice isn't based on the desire to take pity on the stray and welcome you into the fold of the powerful on mercy alone."

Harry took it as a cue to leave. The 'dream' was falling away, even the edges of the office were blurring around him, just like Voldemort's form.

"You will not find yourself disappointed in me," Harry promised sweetly. Layers and layers of deceptions and semi-truths covered that vow.

True, Voldemort would not be disappointed. The man appreciated cunning even in his own nemeses.

A final smirk spread upon the Dark Lord's face.

"We'll see."

The glitter of red accompanied Harry through the rest of his dreams. It acted as Harry's guide through unfamiliar shadows and shades of black that comprised his new nightmares.

**~...~{In a World Gone Astray}~...~**

The Dark Lord smirked into his tea. One lump of sugar, a touch bitter; he loved it.

Immortality had certain perks and quirks... and _costs_ one had to pay, as well as big and small sacrifices. Sleep was one of them. It didn't usually bother Voldemort to spend his nights in the eerie silence of his ancestral home, since Morpheus didn't rush to embrace him, probably as scared as his witless followers, running the other way at the sight of the Dark Lord...

Dreams were useless anyway. Voldemort concentrated on reality.

His plans were wrapping up perfectly. By now, he had perfected the process. His followers, however clever or ambitious or proud, had one thing in common: their desire to impress him. Their desire to hold his attention. Their desire to be complimented by him, and praised, and petted...

He was a merciful Lord. How could he not use them and grant all those things in return?

Sometimes, he gave them back as much as he took. Most of the time he gave them just enough to satisfy them. Other times he gave them back nothing at all except for superficial boons that never matter.

Harry Potter fell into the latter category.

Voldemort licked his lips. In front of him a photograph of the youth taunted him. The boy, Potter, looked around fifteen in it, a twinge younger than he was now. Still all pale limbs and sharp features, black hair crowning his head and emerald eyes astoundingly sharp.

Those eyes had given the boy away. They had implied the boy hid things about himself that Bellatrix with her self-absorbed nature never glimpsed, Rodolphus sneered at, and Rabastan never cared about.

Voldemort had not grasped yet the extent of Potter's mystery, but with a few talks and some head-petting he was sure that the door screening the boy's secrets would bulge. His charms didn't fail, after all.

Besides, unveiling Potter's dirty skeletons would not only be a consolation prize to the boy himself, but prove to be a slight challenge to Voldemort, too. Most likely. Probably. Hopefully.

Even in his youth Voldemort had preferred targeting that sort of males and females. Young, powerful, gorgeous, ambitious, with paths of life spreading out in front of them and guides standing by each one, waiting to steer them along the chosen road. They had so much potential. They could become fathers or mothers, politicians or ambassadors, artists or musicians, historians or bookkeepers... Endless potential.

Until he came along. And all those potential opportunities crumbled, all those roads muddled and were coated with a veneer of dust, till they were unseen and all but inexistent, and those lost souls truly lost themselves in all that jumbled mess. When all the paths and guides vanished, he burst into existence in front of them to offer a steering hand and thrall them into the chains of obedience.

Voldemort had an exquisite taste in his "victims".

Harry Potter. He was already working on the boy.

He would enjoy stripping that independent, stubborn, mesmerising creature of his purpose, layer by layer, until all that was left were the bare bones of the core personality. And then he would flesh him out again. Meat made up of servitude, devotion, faith.

Make the boy work for him. Fall in love with him. Adore him, trail after him like a lost puppy... Soil his parents' memories for him.

After all, Voldemort was in no rush to carry out his plans. The whole favour thing would last a couple of years, give or take, and he would keep Potter as his pet for a month or so – to savour the other's defeat and willing submission. To laugh at Lily Potter's last sacrifice.

Voldemort sipped his tea again. Yes, he loved it bittersweet.

**~...~{In a World Gone Astray}~...~**

Harry still avoided thinking about the Voldemort-induced "dream" and the implications of it, scrubbed the skin of his Dark Mark an angry red every time he took a shower, and dreaded the after-mission weekends when he would be forced to endure Lucius Malfoy and his drawling self.

All in all, Harry didn't enjoy his life that morning. Even his favourite treacle tart didn't brighten the day.

On the other hand, the flapping of wings and Hedwig that landed seconds later did.

Harry's sharp eyes spied the item she carried in her claws even before her arrival, so he immediately snatched it away before anyone else could see what exactly he was receiving. One did not usually get illegal potions first-thing in the morning.

"Thanks, Hedwig, girl," Harry muttered sleepily, absently petting his owl before sending her away to the owlery. "I'll drop by later with a letter maybe."

"What are you getting, Potter?"

The voice that drawled in a tone that attempted to drown the interest and failed Harry would know everywhere. Malfoy. _Of course._

Although their housemates' animosity in regards to Malfoy was waning, the blond still refused to leave Harry's side, tagging along as if glued to Harry's body. Sometimes the teen was a bloody challenge to get off his back, trailing after him like a sneering, useless puppy. Malfoy never struck a conversation, never strove to socialise with Harry – but he needed to stay close.

Harry admitted it freaked him out.

He also admitted it benefitted. The more Malfoy followed him, the bigger would be his debt when Harry came to gather it.

Didn't mean Harry had to_ like_ the ferret's company.

"Malfoy. You are imposing," Harry deadpanned. His fingers itched to pull out the wand and fire a hex or two in the blond's direction, but alas, with the oldies at the staff table such a move was the embodiment of suicide. In disfavour or no, no one mucked about with the Malfoy heir.

Said Malfoy heir knew that well.

"Don't get your knickers in a bunch, Potter." Malfoy sneered into the book he had taken to carry around constantly. Harry didn't care to read the title, but it had become Malfoy's refuge those first days of ill treatment. "If I am stuck with you, the least I can do is ensure you don't keep any secrets..."

Malfoy threw him a disdainful look full of scorn, sitting down elegantly and filling a particle of the vast empty space beside Harry. News didn't get around that he was a squad leader yet, but once they did, Harry savoured the knowledge that people wouldn't be quite as condescending to his presence.

"You are _awfully_ transparent, Potter. Is being enigmatic for my pleasure too much to ask for?"

_And isn't this ironic?_

Harry smiled thinly. The smile came out exactly as 'enigmatic' as Malfoy wanted it.

"If you like unveiling riddles, go buy a book of them. I doubt you will be able to solve much of it, but at least it will keep you from bothering the busier people," Harry mocked. He opened his mouth to continue, but his eye spied a flurry of movement at the Hufflepuff table; Susan Bones and her flock of friends were departing from the Great Hall.

Time to act out the second stage of his plan.

The tendrils of Legilimency around Harry which he had learnt to more or less control, fluttered into existence around him.

"Good luck with solving riddles, Malfoy. I'm off to _weave_ real-life mysteries."

Harry slipped out of the Great Hall after the Hufflepuffs. Malfoy's indignant shouts followed him at his heels.

**~...~{In a World Gone Astray}~...~**

"Hello, Susan," Harry greeted the girl warmly. Some bit of that tender tone rang true: of all Hogwarts students he considered Bones one of the most likeable witches. Perhaps the hair was at fault – flaming red, like his mother's, it reminded him of a spicy shampoo and dances in the backyard.

The sentence that hung on her parents haunted the girl, visibly. Harry eyed the signs of weariness and exhaustion. Deep lines, bags under muddled blue eyes, gaunt cheeks, a scent of unclean clothes at which he wrinkled his nose...

Everything told Harry that the Order most likely wasn't going to save her parents-

Or it was a test to him, to see if he, knowing full well the implications and the risks, would chance saving the lives of Light supporters. In that case, Harry wouldn't disappoint.

"Harry?" she asked, her eyes widening marginally. Her shoulders tensed. She gripped the strap of her bag so tightly that her knuckles paled, completely white in the hallway. "Are you- You are here on mission matters."

Oh. Now Harry understood her almost hostile posture. If she believed he strove to dispose of her parents, her attitude didn't surprise him in the least. Merlin knew Harry's own parents' deaths had led him to that point.

Still, he had to ascertain her connection with the Light side, to prove that he wasn't fighting for the lives of people he didn't know for no benefit at all. A Slytherin stayed a Slytherin in every situation, and Harry rivalled Voldemort in his ruthless determination. He couldn't afford spreading himself thin on goals of others which wouldn't further his own.

So, time to use some Legilimency.

Harry started blabbering some condolences nonsense while his inner eye focused on Bones and her mind. Her feeble Occlumency shields didn't contain her grief or her traitorous thoughts – which Harry found completely idiotic. If you're stepping onto the path of treason, at least please take the basic precautions for your own safety, for Morgana's sake! – and so Harry had to bat those nuisances away.

He dug deeper.

Now he bypassed the memories on the forefront of her mind, minor facts that didn't interest him, like her crush and her homework and friends and pastimes... Deeper and deeper he burrowed himself, methodically averting the dangers of triggering traumatic recollections that had a chance to overwhelm him and entrance his attention completely, thus leaving him an empty body standing with empty eyes like a doll or a golem.

_Where the hell did she bury it? Here?.. Fuck, I don't care about her childhood misfortunes! The Order memories- _

Finally, Harry's search bore fruit.

With a sense of victory engulfing him, Harry plunged into a set of memories that _reeked_ of Light magic. They showed balderdash. People talking gibberish and repeating the same movements, half like a malfunctioning record, half like a circus show. Magic burst and Harry recognised immediately the sings of a powerful Vow.

The same signs that Granger's mind had yielded, and Hannah Abbot's, and Weasley's, and some others'. Add to that the sweet vanilla-tinted flavour of Light spells...

"I have a proposition," Harry offered suddenly. His face lit up with a smile as he carefully cast a Silencing Charm and a strong ward to keep out any interlopers. "I know how to save your parents. We can do it together. All we need is the assistance of a very close and trusted friend of yours, and some of our famous rebels."

Susan Bones knew she made a deal with the muggle Devil the moment her eyes lit up with hope.

**~...~{In a World Gone Astray}~...~**

"Hello, Goyle," Harry purred, his smile widening when the larger teen whirled around, fright evident in his posture. The moment passed, and disdain replaced the fear in Goyle's murky eyes when he saw who was calling him.

"Potter." One would think his name was an insult. Harry didn't mind. In fact, his smirk only grew at the obvious murderous intent his presence gathered. "Little mudbloods like you should keep away and know their place."

"Above you?" Harry mocked before he sighed mock-sadly, shaking his head, and sashayed closer to the other Slytherin. He exuded a seductive aura and utilised some tricks that wouldn't work on anyone with half a mind: arched his back, rolled his hips, puffed out his lips, hooded his eyes. Cheap, wantonly monkeyshines that dirtied him, made him feel greasy and unclean but worked wonders on Goyle's crotch.

"Tut, tut, Goyle. This is no way to talk to your superior. Be a good lapdog and I might chirp a word to the Dark Lord." Harry narrowed his eyes in a semblance of a closed-eyed smile. "We're going to see a lot of each other with him, you see."

Goyle curled his upper lip. Snorting, he turned away from Harry.

"The Dark Lord won't listen to your babble, blood traitor. Shut the fuck up and choke on the dick you sucked to get this position." Goyle stormed up to him and smirked nastily as he flexed his fists. "We all know a pretentious little mudblood like you ain't worth more than a cheap whore."

"I'd say that to be appointed squad leader I'd get to be a very expensive whore," Harry drawled impassively. Goyle's insinuations had followed him through his entire childhood. They didn't sting. Not anymore.

Seeing that Goyle was fuming at the remark, Harry held up his hands in a placatory gesture. Wouldn't do to have the aberration too pig-headed for their looming deal. Still, the smirk on his face refused to vanish.

"Now, now, I'm not here to pull at your nerves, whatever hidden agenda you've prescribed me. I've gone through all the trouble to dig you out of this hole you were hiding in because I want to offer you a proposition."

Goyle snorted. "I'd rather fuck a slug than accept."

"That can be arranged, too." Harry's voice dropped a few notches. His emerald eyes blazed a cold fire as he directed his intense stare at Goyle, making the other shiver. "Don't worry, I won't subject the poor slug to this torture. It's enough that you had to swallow a few."

A vein popped on Goyle's forehead. Oops. Perhaps Harry shouldn't have reminded him of that duel if he wanted to keep things half-peaceful between them.

Then, Harry's grin returned with vengeance. He made the final single step to the seething Goyle.

"A slug would not accept your advances... But I might."

Goyle stilled. The spark in his murky brown eyes screamed 'lust' as his hand lunged to grab Harry's shoulder. Exactly the moment the black-haired boy had been waiting for.

Harry danced away from the reach. His lips pulled apart into a playful grin as he drawled mockingly, tapping his finger on his lips, "Of course, not for free."

Goyle snorted again. "You're really a harlot, Potter. Selling yourself for money?" His eyes hungrily roamed all over Harry's well-built figure. "I can work with that."

"Not for money. We can make a different sort of deal. A more... complex one. We duel right now." Goyle immediately tensed, ready to move away. "Now, now, is this feat I scent? Are you frightened of me, Gregory Goyle?"

Harry's eyes hypnotised his opponent, didn't let him look away, and the voice, pitched low just so, only enhanced the effect.

"Don't be a moron!" Goyle snapped and balled his fists. _Pretentious fool. Does he know I'm going to enjoy wiping the floor with him? This is the example of a person whom life doesn't teach anything._

"Then we duel. The winner gets the other in his complete control for one day. Before the duel, we make Wizarding Vows to ensure that the terms of this one-day enslavement and what either of us asks the other stay hidden."

As expected, Goyle bristled. "What, I don't even get to tell the others of all the ways I'll fuck you in?"

Harry smiled sharply linking his fingers together.

"If you win, you can blabber it to everyone you want."

Goyle stood still for a moment, adopting what he called his 'deep thinking' expression, but to Harry looked like a troll trying to figure out what two plus two would equal to.

"But I wanna tell you something first, Potter."

"I'm all ears," Harry bit out impatiently; they were wasting time!

A dangerous gleam entered Goyle's eyes, not unlike Voldemort's in that dream, but much less shiver-inducing and more simply freakish.

"I'll fuck you so hard and so raw that your throat will be hurting for weeks," he promised maliciously, lips curled. Harry's eyes widened. He _so_ didn't want to hear that; the images appalled him. "For a single day, we will do it in a classroom, and on a teacher's table, and near Snape's cauldron's, and in the hallways. Without lube, with conjured objects and ropes-"

"Can I ask you a question?" Harry piped in, warily staring at Goyle's flushed cheeks and visible excitement.

"Try me, blood traitor."

"From what height did they drop you in your childhood?"

**~...~{In a World Gone Astray}~...~**

The duel was almost over and it hadn't tired him out yet. Harry hardly broken into sweat. His wand sliced through the air with fluid movements and easily conjured shields, fired out powerful curses, reflected Goyle's junxes. His opponent was purely a heavy hitter, but after exhausting most of his magical resources, he succumbed to Harry's tricks. An empowered _Expelliarmus_ sent him into the wall.

Harry strode confidently to the awkwardly lying figure. The sense of déjà vu followed him throughout the entire scene even as he crouched by Goyle.

"You see, dear Goyle," Harry started, his voice almost gentle like a mother's caress or a balm on stinging wounds, "you never stood a chance. If there was even a tiniest possibility of you winning this duel, I'd have backed off from this little scheme..."

Under Goyle's glower Harry smoothed the hair on the teen's head, patting him like he would a dog along the way. Revenge felt sweet. Especially revenge that not only tingled pleasantly but was actually useful.

"You disgust me. I'll never let you touch me in any way, no matter how much you yearn for me. You are nothing more than a disgusting worm, Gregory Goyle, and now, when I'm a squad leader, you're my slave." Harry bent over and his hand clasped to Goyle's upper arm. "And do you know what people do with slaves? They utilise them."

Harry burst out into peals of laughter.

"The best thing is you won't dare go to the Dark Lord about this, because as soon as you voice him my terms, you'll lose your magic, and I daresay Lord Voldemort has no use for squibs."

"You'll pay for this," Goyle spat out furiously. Harry waved him off.

"Yes, yes, cue in that villainous catchphrase – how sweet. Except that villains are usually thwarted in the end, don't you know?"

**~...~{In a World Gone Astray}~...~**

The entire squad plus the instructor all apparated in front of the Bones' house.

Susan Bones looked a wreck with a nervous breakdown, while others simply looked uncomfortable. Thorfinn Rowle closed his eyes briefly before declaring he dismantled the wards.

"Now, kiddies, raise the Anti-Apparition wards and we go in!"

Hermione set out to work, of course, after an imperceptible nod from Harry. He traded looks with 'Goyle'. Everything was coming along nicely. He only hoped that the Order wouldn't muck it up.

**~...~{In a World Gone Astray}~...~**

**Please tell me what you think about this! Thanks!**


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